Tottenham v Young Boys the 30m match & the Glazer family suffer further embarrassing financial difficulties

Comment & analysis round-up

Quote of the day:We need to win the game. If we cant win tomorrow from the position were in now, we dont deserve to be in the group stages do we? What hope would we have in the group stages if we cant win tomorrow? If we play as we can do, I dont see any reason why we cant win. Weve got to get after them early, set them back. Weve got to swarm all over them if we can. Im not going to sit here and say we need to be patient or whatever, we have to start with a high intensity and put them under pressure. It wont be easy, of course, they are a good side and they can play, but well make it an intimidating atmosphere and Im sure the fans will play their part in helping us make it a sensational night at White Hart Lane. Harry Redknapp.

Runner-up:Year after year it looks like, but no, it looks like, but no. Always the same type of comment Its a young team, It will be next season, it will be next season. Fantastic for Arsene that he signed a new contract. I remember when we played them in a Carling Cup semi-final when they played the team of young boys. The team of young boys is not the team of young boys now, they are a team of 25, 26, 27 year olds. So Fabregas, Walcott, Clichy, Song and Sagna are not kids, they are a team old enough to win things. But they will do it. I think it will again be Manchester United, Chelsea and, of course, Man City, because they have a great squad. Jose Mourinho.

After bashing Arsenal, The Special One lays into Fabio Capello:He has a one-track relationship with players. You cannot go around just shouting at players. They need to feel special. Capello will not work for England. He does not know the players. They are frightened of him and they cant play for him.

Todays overview:The back pages look ahead to tonights Champions League sec! ond leg qualifying match between Spurs and Young Boys. The stand-out piece comes from Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail who traces the dilemma faced by Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.

David Conn brings the most interesting news piece of the day, revealing Manchester Uniteds owners, the Glazer family, have suffered further embarrassing financial difficulties after four more of its US shopping malls recently fell into default on their mortgages.

Elsewhere there are updates of Javier Maascheranos exit from Liverpool, Kenny Huangs non-existent takeover of the Merseyside giants and both Daniel Taylor and Sam Wallace wonder how good Manchester City are.

There is also news of Fabio Capello dropping Jack Wilshere, The Sun call Don Fabio a donkey and Oliver Holt writes of the death of Adam Stansfield.

Lucky Boys v Young Boys: David Hytner paints a picture before the Champions League game tonight. Tottenham Hotspur supporters can picture the scenario. It is the draw for the Champions League group stage in Monaco on Thursday and their team is in it. They have to get one of Europes big guns from the first pot of seeds and there is a fair chance that it will be Barcelona, Real Madrid or the holders Internazionale. They cannot draw an English club. Excitement courses the veins. It is 48 years since Tottenham competed in the European Cup proper. The manager, Harry Redknapp,, meanwhile, is on the hunt for glamour signings. He confirmed today that he wanted Lassana Diarra; that his clubs chief scout had spoken to the Real Madrid midfielders representatives. Wages, however, might be a problem. Hes on big, big wages at Real Madrid, Redknapp said. Then, there is Lus Fabiano, Brazils No1 striker, who is said to be on the brink of a move from Sevilla. Redknapp poured cold water on this. But imagine if he could have the world-class targetman to complete his line-up?

The Daily Mail concentrat! e on Jer main Defoe playing through the pain barrier. Laura Williamson: Jermain Defoe will play through mounting pain for an hour on Wednesday night as he attempts to fire Tottenham into the Champions League group stage. Defoes groin injury is now so serious he will have an operation next week, ruling him out of Englands Euro 2012 qualifiers against Bulgaria and Switzerland. But Harry Redknapp will play him for 60 minutes at most at White Hart Lane as Spurs attempt to cash in on qualification, which is worth up to 30million. The Mail also go back to Gareth Bales school to analyse why so many sportsmen were developed there.

In an excellent article Martin Samuel traces the dilemma faced by Spurs chairman Daniel Levy. Whatever Levy spends cannot match the scope of the project at Manchester City and are Tottenham a match for the traditional Champions League elite clubs, the fading Liverpool aside? If Levy plunged into the transfer market with a 50million or 100m investment and it still wasnt sufficient, where would Tottenham be? It is a ridiculous balancing act that club owners are being asked to perform these days; and while it is easy to blame Manchester Citys owners for distorting the cost of success, they are merely trying to catch up with clubs that have lived off the extraordinary dividend of the Champions League season after season. This is the real problem, and Levys great dilemma. Last year, Liverpool earned 23.6m from UEFA for getting knocked out at the Champions League group stage, while Fulham banked 8.1m for reaching the final of the Europa League. Levy will feel an imperative to invest to keep the good times going, while all the time knowing the calamitous double whammy of failure: a huge transfer deficit and at least 15m knocked off competition revenue streams. It could place his club in jeopardy.

Mark Fleming also ratchets up the pressure on Spurs. The opportunity presented to Tottenham Hotspur tonight has been 49 years in the making, as manager Harry Redknapp knows only too well because h! e was a teenager in the crowd the last time his club dined at Europes top table. Redknapp was a 14-year-old schoolboy on the books at Spurs when he joined the thousands to watch Tottenhams first ever European Cup tie at White Hart Lane, in which Bill Nicholsons Double-winners recorded a remarkable 8-1 demolition of Polish champions Gornik Zabrze.

Manchester Uniteds debt: David Conn has some worrying news for United fans. Manchester Uniteds owners, the Glazer family, have suffered further embarrassing financial difficulties after four more of its US shopping malls recently fell into default on their mortgages. With the interest rate charged on Uniteds enormous payment-in-kind debts rising from 14.25% to 16.25% this month, the news could hardly come at a worse time. An investigation by the Guardian in conjunction with the BBCs Panorama programme and the investment analyst Andy Green in June found that of the 68 shopping malls owned by the Glazers US-based First Allied Corporation, four had gone bust and one more had defaulted on its mortgage. An analysis of the malls most recent financial disclosures has revealed that four more have since failed to pay their mortgages and become classified as delinquent, with two falling into default this month.

Javier Mascherano: According to Sid Lowe Barcelona were tonight preparing a renewed bid for Javier Mascherano after the coach Pep Guardiola admitted that he wanted to sign a defensive midfielder. The comment comes in light of Mascheranos refusal to play for Liverpool at Manchester City . Barcelonas initial bid of 15m (12.3m) with 5m more in add-ons was rejected by Liverpool. The Anfield club are understood to be holding out for a fee closer to 26m. That is a valuation Barcelona are reluctant to match but they remain hopeful of concluding a deal by offering players in return, an! d becaus e of the determination of Mascherano who has made his position abundantly clear to leave.

Ian Ladyman adds Liverpool have told Barcelona they want 18million in cash for midfielder Javier Mascherano by the end of the weekend, so manager Roy Hodgson can reinvest the money during the transfer window. The Merseyside club have reluctantly accepted that Mascherano wants to leave, and the Argentina captain will not be with the squad who fly to Turkey for Europa League duty this morning.

Martin Blackburn reveals Liverpool rebel Javier Mascherano faced a furious backlash in training yesterday. Senior Reds players were stunned when the Argentina midfielder apparently refused to play at Manchester City on Monday night. The Barcelona target then trained on his own at Melwood the morning after the 3-0 trouncing.

Kevin McCarra fears for Liverpool after their defeat at Eastlands. No one even pretends that there can be a grand vision for Liverpool while circumstances are unaltered. In a moment of candour, the chairman Martin Broughton explained last month that Hodgson had been appointed to steady the ship. Stability is welcome, but a club with Liverpools heritage cannot treat that as their real ambition in the longer term. Hodgson will still accept the tranquility that comes with a victory or two in the League. Such results would come more readily if Fernando Torres was at all reminiscent of the forward Liverpool knew before his knee surgery in April. The Spaniard featured in every match of a glorious World Cup campaign but did not score. The club will truly be on the rise when no single player matters so much. For the time being, all the same, Hodgson seeks demonstrations of the impact that Torres or Steven Gerrard can have on Liverpools fortunes.

The non-existent Liverpool takeover: Paul Kelso reports in the Daily Telegraph Chinese businessman Kenny Huang did not enter a formal bid for Liverpool after his anchor investor walked away because of the torrent of publicity surroundi! ng the d eal, Telegraph Sport can disclose.On Tuesday night Marc Ganis, Huangs American business partner, confirmed that there was no bid prior to their withdrawal from the process last week. There was never a formal proposal submitted by us to the club and we have been very clear about that, Ganis said. Separately, Telegraph Sport has established that the credibility of the Huang bid in the eyes of Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton was undermined when they were forced to seek fresh money to replace a key investor. Sources close to Huangs company, QSL Sports, claimed the investor walked away because of the publicity surrounding the process.

In a seperate article Paul Kelso lays into Liverpool. Five months after being appointed chairman of Liverpool, Martin Broughton appears no closer to solving the apparently intractable problem of the clubs ownership. Employed at the behest of the Royal Bank of Scotland to find a replacement for Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Broughton seems certain to miss his aspiration of selling Liverpool by the end of the transfer window, and is already considering the far more pressing deadline of Oct 6, when the owners financing on 237 million of debt with RBS expires. Unless a new owner can be found before then and on Tuesday night sources suggested that was unlikely the state-owned bank faces an invidious choice. RBS either unseats the Americans and takes control of the club, with all the PR problems that would entail, or extends more financing, a move that would prompt a backlash on Merseyside and may simply prolong the impasse.

Manchester City: Daniel Taylor hails a new vibe and confidence about Manchester City. The first thing to say about Manchester City is that for a team of fractious individuals, mercenaries and strangers, only there for the money and, please, can someone explain how they are ! possibly going to keep them all happy? and led by an unpopular manager who doesnt speak to the players (and will probably be gone by Christmas anyway), they didnt do too badly, did they? As much as one performance should never be used as the barometer for a season, the 3-0 dismantling of Liverpool may, at the very least, have changed a few perceptions. It was their most emphatic win against Liverpool since a 5-1 victory in 1937, back in the days when the wonderfully named Wilf Wild was manager and Maine Road was the Wembley of the North in short, far too long ago to find any sepia-tinted memories on YouTube. And heres the other thing: for all the expensive overseas signings brought into a club where even the keep off the grass signs are now in different languages, it was achieved with half a dozen English players in the team, which is considerably more than might have been anticipated now City have become a place of Yaya and Kolo rather than Jeff and Jim.

Sam Wallace also wonders how good City are. City have the lot. They have Emmanuel Adebayor on the substitutes bench; they have Mario Balotelli in the stands and debatable though it is in terms of the ethics of the game they can afford to subsidise the wages of Craig Bellamy to keep him in the Championship and away from potential rivals. Everyone thinks they have good enough players to win the title, but do they have the team? To answer that you have to ask yourself, what is Roberto Mancinis best side? It is impossible to tell now with injuries and new players at different levels of form and fitness after a World Cup summer. But in a month or two the hierarchy will begin to take shape and, providing City are still in the hunt come next spring, a first XI will emerge.

Aston Villa: Stuart James reports Kevin MacDonald remains the frontrunner to become the new Aston Villa manager, despite Sundays humiliating defeat at Newcastle United, and will be given the two matches this week, against Rapid Vienna and Everton, to prove that he is! capable of doing the job on a permanent basis. Although Villa were thrashed 6-0 at St James Park, Randy Lerner, the chairman, and Paul Faulkner, the chief executive, have treated the scoreline as a freak result. MacDonald impressed in his previous two games as caretaker manager, against West Ham United and Rapid Vienna, and Lerner and Faulkner believe it would be unfair to disregard those two performances and judge the 50-year-old purely on the basis of a woeful afternoon at Newcastle.

Arsenal: Jeremy Wilson explains why Arsene Wenger must sign a keeper. The ongoing importance of a top goalkeeper is best underlined by recent history at Manchester United, where it was not until Sir Alex Fergsuon finally signed a worthy successor to Peter Schmeichel in Edwin van der Sar that his team really reasserted a consistent dominance of English football. The 530,000 that was spent on Schmeichel and then the 2 million for Van der Sar were quite possibly the best two buys that Ferguson ever made. Those now questioning the age of Schwarzer at 37 should also remember that Van der Sar was in his 35th year when Ferguson bought him in 2005 and, five years on, is still among the best goalkeepers in Europe. It is a massive season for Arsenal and one in which so many of their young squad could really come of age. But it will be dependent on a firmer defensive base and risks being fatally undermined by a failure to solve the big goalkeeping question.

Transfer gossip: The Sun claim Chelsea are weighing up a move for South Korea World Cup star Chu-Young Park, Fulham want Dickson Etuhu to sign a new contract as they fear he may join Roy Hodgson at Liverpool and Sunderland have lined up John Utaka. The Currant Bun also adds that Robinho will snub Fenerbahce andBesiktas for a move to Italy or Spain, Chelsea want 5 million pounds for Michael Mancienne, Lazio are closing in on a loan deal for Roque SantaCruz and West Brom are after Derek Boateng.

The Daily Mail run with Liverpool after Car! lton Col e and Mario Gomez, Steven Pienaar will see out his contract at Everton and Spurs will struggle to sign Lassana Diarra.

The Daily Mirror suggest Liverpool have made a bid for Carlton Cole, Chelsea are after Nicolas Burdisso and Chris Hughtons Newcastle future is up in the air after contract talks stall.

Foreign sources say Carlo Ancelotti is not interested in Nicolas Burdisso, Tottenham are after Serdar Tasci, Manchester City are after Claudio Marchisio and Lazio and Liverpool want David Trezeguet.

England: The Sun lead with a report by Shaun Custisthat Donkey Fabio Capello has stuck a hoof into Englands brave new world after just one game. The gormless Italian vowed to rebuild after our World Cup debacle by bringing in young players. But the silly ass has ruled Arsenal whizkid Jack Wilshere, 18, out of next months vital Euro qualifiers. Wilshere made his Three Lions debut in the friendly victory over Hungary and also won rave reviews in the Gunners first two games this season but is now dumped back into the Under-21 squad. There will also be no place for Newcastles Andy Carroll, 21, when the squad is announced on Sunday despite a hat-trick against Aston Villa. Jermain Defoe will miss out too after a groin op.

James Lawton speaks with World Cup winner George Cohen about whether to call up Mikel Arteta. If Mikel Arteta was much more than the superior craftsman he is for Everton, even if he operated at the level of the great Argentine-born Alfredo di Stefano, who played for his homeland, Colombia, and Spain, it would still be utterly wrong-headed to hand him an England cap. The view is unequivocal and comes down from English footballs equivalent of Mount Olympus, the heart of the World Cup-winning side of 1966. Somewhere you have to draw a line on what still matters in football,; says George Cohen, the former Fulham right-back who played 37 tim! es for E ngland and was an automatic selection by Sir Alf Ramsey until he sustained a career-shattering injury a year after the Wembley triumph.

Pampered Premier League players: Oliver Holt uses the death of Adam Stansfield to question how fans see Premier League stars. Stansfield did not live in a flash house or drive a flash car. He lived on a nice, neat estate in the Devon town where he was born and he played out his career in the Conference and Leagues One and Two with Yeovil Town, Hereford United and Exeter. The reaction to his death, the way that it stunned the city where he played, emphasised again that the small clubs struggling to survive in Englands lower leagues are still central to the identities of the communities in which they are based. Clubs like Exeter have had to fight tooth and nail for their very existence and men like Stansfield, who helped to lead them back into the Football League, have established a bond with their communities that most Premier League stars never will. Stansfield meant more to the fans of Exeter City than most of the rootless multi-millionaire players of the Premier League will ever mean to their supporters.

Smut: The Daily Mail have a Clancy/Crouch update. Abbey Clancy has bravely returned to work on This Morning today, after taking some time off following claims that fianc Peter Crouch cheated on her with a teenage prostitute. But while the 24-year-old star looked glamorous in a black and white striped dress as she presented a fashion segment on the ITV morning show, her engagement ring was noticeably absent from her left hand. Clancy has missed her fashion slots for the past fortnight, as the first allegations surrounding her footballer beau emerged.

Watch Free Live Soccer Football Matches Online Here