FC Bayern Munchen News

Harry Kane’s future could be unresolved heading into the January window with Tottenham not willing to sell him this summer, regardless of whether he signs a new deal or where they finish in the Premier League. 

The England international, who is focusing on trying to deliver a top-four spot, will enter the final year of his contract at the end of the season and talks over extending at the club are currently on ice.

Tottenham have no intention of sanctioning a sale even if that remains the case heading into the new campaign. Spurs are prioritising getting a deal over the line, but are being patient with their key asset.

Kane’s presence and contribution to the club is more valuable than the transfer fee he could amass, especially as they face a summer of transition with manager Antonio Conte set to depart and football director Fabio Paratici’s future uncertain.

Manchester United, long-term admirers of Kane, retain a strong interest in the 29-year-old but cannot afford a transfer saga in a priority position. Erik ten Hag wants a forward recruited as early as possible and his ideal scenario is to have new signings in place for the bulk of pre-season.

The Carabao Cup winners would “absolutely” explore a deal for the striker if everything aligned and Spurs switched from obstinate to being open to business. However, there is no appetite for a war of attrition with Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy.

Depending on their summer trading and the profile brought into the attack – United are very mindful of having to sell well and comply with Financial Fair Play regulations – they could revisit the Kane situation in January.

United have cast a wide net over dynamic options, with the likes of Victor Osimhen, Goncalo Ramos, Lautaro Martinez, Dusan Vlhaovic and Mohammed Kudus assessed.

If Tottenham hold firm as planned this summer and still cannot get Kane to agree a new deal as the winter window approaches, he would be free to sign a pre-contract agreement with an overseas club in January – a situation Bayern Munich are particularly invested in.

Much will depend on where Spurs (and United) finish domestically this season, as well as who succeeds Conte. Mauricio Pochettino would convince Kane to extend his deal if appointed, while sources close to the player believe he could also be swayed by an ambitious hire like Thomas Tuchel.

He is not at the age to “front another project and rebuild.” Kane wants to win and add silverware to a career of great professionalism, consistency and scoring excellence. He does not want to be remembered as “the guy who broke goal records but didn’t have any trophies to show for it.”

Carra: Man Utd only realistic option for Kane

Manchester United is Harry Kane’s only realistic transfer destination if he leaves Tottenham this summer, says Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher.

“I think the only place he can go realistically is Manchester United and I don’t want to see him at Manchester United for obvious reasons,” Sky Sports pundit Carragher said on CBS. “When you think Liverpool have just signed Darwin Nunez, Manchester City have got Erling Haaland, and he can’t go to Arsenal.

“I don’t think there are too many clubs there right now for him but in terms of what is happening right now I think it is pretty negative and I think it will be interesting to see how it goes from now until the end of the season. I think there is going to be a real negativity around this club until now and the end of the season.”

Asked if Bayern Munich were another option, Carragher added: “He will want the Premier League record, if he stays between now and the end of his career he will be the top scorer to ever play in the Premier League.

“It can’t be the most important thing but it is a pretty special achievement. So I think if he is going to stay in England, the only big team who need a centre-forward is Manchester United. But will they pay £100m for a guy who is nearly 30?

“If he doesn’t leave this summer he will stay at Tottenham for the rest of his career.”

Asked if that was a bad thing for Kane, Carragher added: “No. Tottenham will always be there and thereabouts in terms of qualifying for the Champions League but are they going to win trophies? No. He’s never won one trophy in his life.

“Of course, he will [be idolised at Spurs if he stays]. If you’re asking me if he’s going to a club where he thinks he might win a domestic or leave Tottenham I would probably stay at Tottenham.

“He’s a guy who should be at least getting to quarters, semi-finals of the Champions League every year. He’s that good. But where does he go, that’s the big question?”

With Chelsea guaranteed a Champions League quarter-final spot, and with Manchester City and Liverpool still battling to make it through, find out when the draw for the last eight and the semi-finals will take place, and who will be involved.

Chelsea are the only English side through to the quarter-finals so far after overcoming Borussia Dortmund 2-1 on aggregate in the last 16.

Manchester City and Liverpool are the other Premier League teams who can still reach the quarters, with both teams playing their second legs this week.

City face RB Leipzig on Tuesday at the Etihad Stadium after Pep Guardiola’s side were held to a 1-1 draw in Germany in the first leg.

Liverpool, meanwhile, face a Herculean task in their bid to overturn a 5-2 first-leg deficit against defending champions Real Madrid, with the second leg taking place on Wednesday at the Bernabeu.

But Tottenham will not be involved in the draw after limping out to AC Milan 1-0 on aggregate.

Bayern Munich and Benfica are also through, with Inter Milan or Porto and Eintracht Frankfurt or Napoli hoping to join them in the last eight.

Here’s all you need to know ahead of the quarter-final and semi-final draws…

When are the quarter-final and semi-final draws?

The draws take place at 11am UK time on Friday, March 17 in Nyon, Switzerland at UEFA’s headquarters.

You can follow the draw with Sky Sports’ live blog, so you can keep across everything right here.

How do the draws work?

The eight last-16 winners are involved in an open quarter-final and semi-final draw.

There are no seedings and no country protection, so clubs can face opposition from the same country. They can also draw teams they previously played in the group stage.

A final draw will also take place to determine the ‘home’ side for administrative reasons for the showpiece event in Istanbul, Turkey on June 10.

Who will be in the quarter-final and semi-final draws?

• AC Milan
• Bayern Munich
• Benfica
• Chelsea
• Manchester City or RB Leipzig (1-1 after first leg)
• Napoli or Eintracht Frankfurt (2-0 after first leg)
• Porto or Inter Milan (0-1 after first leg)
• Real Madrid or Liverpool (5-2 after first leg)

When are the quarter-finals?

The first legs of the quarter-finals will be played Tuesday, April 11 and Wednesday, April 12.

The second legs will be played Tuesday, April 18 and Wednesday, April 19.

When are the semi-finals?

The first legs of the semi-finals will be held on May 9 and 10, and the second legs on May 16 and 17.

When is the final?

The final takes place on June 10 at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Turkey.

All the top stories and transfer rumours from Saturday’s newspapers…

DAILY MIRROR

Bayern Munich look set to opt against turning Joao Cancelo’s loan into a permanent move after a disappointing start to his time in Germany.

The economy had a partial bounce back last month, helped by the restart of the Premier League post-World Cup.

DAILY MAIL

Jurgen Klopp is committed to replenishing Liverpool’s midfield this summer and will not change his plans due to the progress of Harvey Elliott and Stefan Bajcetic.

Manchester United have reportedly paid a six-figure compensation fee to Doncaster Rovers after signing three of their academy players.

Inter Milan are interested in signing West Ham’s out-of-favour striker Gianluca Scamacca, according to reports in Italy.

THE TIMES

Emma Raducanu has revealed that she has been “living under my own little rock” since January after deleting social media and messaging apps from her mobile phone.

Kyle Walker is set to play for Manchester City against Crystal Palace after having a heart-to-heart with Pep Guardiola.

DAILY TELEGRAPH

The Glazer family are now targeting a sale of Manchester United before the transfer window opens in June should they decide to cash in on the club, Telegraph Sport understands.

David Sullivan has no intention of selling West Ham United or sacking manager David Moyes.

THE ATHLETIC

Jamie Vardy’s U.S. club Rochester New York FC ceases operations.

Head injury charities have called on IFAB to change the law of the game which requires medics to be invited onto the field by the referee.

Graham Potter believes January signing Mykhailo Mudryk has benefitted from his decision to leave him out of the Chelsea side.

DAILY EXPRESS

NFL legend J.J. Watt is in the United Kingdom to meet with Burnley club officials as the former defensive star could sensationally become a minority shareholder.

THE DAILY RECORD

Alfredo Morelos has reportedly signed a pre-contract to leave Rangers for Sevilla – and Kenny Miller reckons it’d be a fine move.

Former Celtic star spotter Neil McGuinness is in the frame for the head of recruitment role at Southampton.

THE SCOTTISH SUN

Angus Gunn has pledged his future to Scotland – and will be called up for this month’s Euro double-header.

Former Paris St Germain forward Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting helped knock his old side out of the Champions League as Bayern Munich sealed a dominant 3-0 aggregate victory.

How Bayern brushed aside PSG…

Leading 1-0 from the first leg in Paris, the 33-year-old scored the opener in a 2-0 second-leg victory to send the Bundesliga giants through to the quarter-finals.

The Cameroon international benefited from a defensive mistake from 17-year-old substitute El Chadaille Bitshiabu to score just past the hour mark before Serge Gnabry put the seal on another European failure for the big-spending French club.

Bitshiabu, who had only come on at half-time to replace Nordi Mukiele – who lasted just nine minutes himself after replacing the injured Marquinhos – tried to play out from the left-back position but put Marco Verratti under pressure and he was robbed by Thomas Muller.

Muller moved it on to Leon Goretzka, who drew Gianluigi Donnarumma before rolling a pass to his left for Choupo-Moting to score his 17th of the season.

The former Stoke striker thought he had opened the scoring in the 52nd minute when he glanced Jamal Musiala’s inviting curling ball into the bottom right corner, only for VAR to rule it out due to an offside against Muller, who was interfering as he attempted to play the ball.

While Choupo-Moting may have delivered the decisive blow, the hosts – and certainly goalkeeper Yann Sommer – were indebted to Matthijs de Ligt after he cleared a Ferreira Vitinha shot off the line just before the break.

Sommer attempted to dribble out of his box and Achraf Hakimi pressured him into presenting the ball to Vitinha who rolled a shot past the goalkeeper towards an empty net only for the Holland international to slide in and hook clear.

Just prior to that PSG had lost captain Marquinhos to injury, allowing the club’s record goalscorer Kylian Mbappe to take the armband but the additional responsibility could not inspire any heroics from the France striker.

The closest he came all night was as early as the 14th minute when he had the ball in the net but the whistle had already gone for a foul as he had clattered into Sommer on the edge of the penalty area.

Bayern’s defensive resilience in Europe this season – this was their seventh clean sheet in eight matches – meant even a side featuring Mbappe and Lionel Messi faltered as PSG failed to get past the last 16 stage for the fifth time in seven years.

As the Champions League last-16 round embarks on its crucial second-leg matches, Sky Sports’ football writers pick out the key talking points from the standout ties.

Potter’s biggest Chelsea match so far?

Graham Potter vowed to “look into everything” to try and halt an alarming run of form that had seen Chelsea win just once in 2023 prior to the cagey 1-0 victory over Leeds on Saturday.

Wesley Fofana’s powerful header was the first time his side had scored at home since January 15, and only a second goal anywhere across seven games in all competitions.

After three straight clean sheets in January and February, Potter will hope he has found a temporary solution to cover for Thiago Silva following his knee ligament injury, but the result papered over the cracks of the performance.

It was unconvincing but stopping the rot was all that mattered. It has bought Potter time when there is yet to be a clear sign that players signed in January at a cost of £315m are gelling into a cohesive unit.

Still 11 points off fourth in the Premier League, Chelsea’s best hope of qualifying for next season’s Champions League would appear through winning the competition. It is make or break for Potter.

The owners’ attitudes to the manager’s long-term future, until now unwavering in their support, have begun to shift.

Chelsea must improve on their poor record of recovery when falling behind. This is when they must show character.

Potter’s side have lost their last nine matches in which they have conceded first, and confidence visibly drained from the team once they went a goal down early in the second half of the 2-0 defeat by Tottenham towards the end of last month.

Chelsea must now show they have started to turn a corner, that there is no problem with mentality, but any sense of momentum will be derailed if Borussia Dortmund dump them out of Europe.
Ben Grounds

Can record-breaker Mbappe get what he wants from PSG?

It has been a good week for Kylian Mbappe, who broke the Paris Saint-Germain goalscoring record with his 201st goal for the club on Saturday evening.

It is a major landmark for the 24-year-old forward – but now the attention turns back to the Champions League, the only trophy to have evaded the Frenchman in his career.

PSG go into Wednesday night’s last-16 second leg at Bayern Munich trailing 1-0 from the first encounter in Paris. The French champions will need a major performance to progress and will likely turn to their talismanic No 7 for inspiration.

But should PSG go out of the competition at this early stage, it would open up a wave of speculation about Mbappe’s future in Paris. Can PSG deliver Mbappe the trophy he really wants?

The player himself is adamant that Champions League fortunes will not dictate his future, but Mbappe would be 25 by the time the next knockout stages come around. He will be entering his prime and would want to be at the best possible club to achieve multiple European honours to match his stature.
Sam Blitz

Bynoe-Gittens following Sancho and Bellingham examples

Jude Bellingham is not the only Englishman who will be eager to impress when Borussia Dortmund face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday evening. In fact, his London-born team-mate Jamie Bynoe-Gittens might be even more motivated.

The winger, a year younger than Bellingham at 18, is not yet a household name in England but he is certainly known to Chelsea – and not just because of his cameo in last month’s first leg. As a boy, he spent time in their academy before opting to join Reading.

From there, his career has followed a similar path to that of Jadon Sancho. England call-ups at youth level; a move from the outskirts of London – in Sancho’s case it was Watford – to Manchester City; then a leap into the unknown with Borussia Dortmund.

The move to Germany came in the summer of 2020, a decision made, like Sancho, with a first-team pathway in mind. Recent evidence suggests it has paid off. Having shone at U19 level, Bynoe-Gittens is now a fully-fledged member of Dortmund’s senior squad.

A shoulder injury stalled his progress in the first half of the season but there have been three goals and an assist in just 417 minutes of Bundesliga action so far and a deeper look at the numbers underlines his effectiveness. He ranks top in the division for shots on target per 90 minutes and second for goals from open play.

Dortmund see him as their next big thing and comparisons with Sancho, who joined Manchester United for £73m a year after his arrival, are unavoidable, but Bynoe-Gittens is his own man. He will be out to show it on his return to London.
Nick Wright

Will Spurs kickstart their season again?

Tottenham have not won a European knockout game in any UEFA competition since they reached the Champions League final in 2019.

That is not the only hoodoo Spurs are facing as they prepare to host AC Milan on Wednesday night. It has been a decade since Antonio Conte last made the Champions League quarter-finals as a manager, with last-16 and group-stage exits in each of his last four campaigns at Europe’s top table.

They perhaps will not get a better chance to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League than this year – as they come up against a side in a similar situation to themselves: out of the title race and in the midst of inconsistent results.

Trailing Milan 1-0 from the first leg, Conte and Spurs need a last-eight spot in this year’s competition to kickstart some life into their season and show this side have improved from last season.

An exit and Spurs will be competing for fourth place again, as they were at the end of the last campaign – is this enough for Conte, Harry Kane and others to stay faithful to this project for another season?

Spurs have missed their shooting boots in their last two games – but have managed big derby wins in their most recent home matches against West Ham and Chelsea. Those two matches are something to replicate on Wednesday.
Sam Blitz

Has Parker Scott to go with another poor result?

Less than a year ago, Scott Parker was on Cloud Nine after guiding Bournemouth back to the Premier League at the first time of asking.

Ten months is a long time in football. The 42-year-old is already staring down the barrel of a second sacking since that promotion.

“He must now conclude that he is not the right man in the right place,” said Belgium’s Het Laatste Nieuws after his Club Brugge side were humbled by relegation-troubled Oostende on Friday night.

A 9-0 defeat at Liverpool in August was enough to spook an overzealous Cherries hierarchy only four games into the Premier League season, and now Parker’s luck is up again. Eleven matches after he took over at Club Brugge on New Year’s Eve, he finds himself back up the creek without a paddle.

There is not much room for error among the canals of Brugge, where the Blauw-Zwart have won or finished second in all of the last eight seasons. They were already 12 points off leaders Genk when Parker arrived, and after only two wins in 10 since that gap has widened to 19.

That Oostende loss has not quite proved the final straw, but a poor showing against Benfica on Tuesday could. The tie is already as good as over after Club Brugge’s 2-0 defeat in the home leg, but with question marks raised this week whether the dressing room are still behind their manager, the manner of the performance in Lisbon is critical for the Englishman abroad to save his future.
Ron Walker

Musiala is the main man for Bayern now

Speaking to Jamal Musiala in the mixed zone after the German Super Cup win in Leipzig in July, he outlined the challenge of replacing outgoing striker Robert Lewandowski. Musiala had been the first of five Bayern Munich players to score that afternoon.

“With all the goals that he scored, it is not easy to find a player like that. But we have an amazing squad and we have to spread the goals out between all of us and have to find offensive solutions apart from Lewandowski to score goals.”

As the Michael Jordan meme goes, Musiala took that personally. The 20-year-old midfielder is Bayern’s top scorer in the Bundesliga this season, becoming perhaps their most important player. Against Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night, the team will turn to him.

As well as the goals, Musiala is second in the Bundesliga for assists this season. He also ranks fifth for the most dribbles in the competition too. His movement, on the ball and off it, is proving elusive – an unlikely feat given that he stands six feet tall.

Julian Nagelsmann has said that the ball sticks to Musiala’s foot like a magnet and the Bayern coach has found an interesting role for him in this team. The rotations around Musiala often change, the formation too, but there is a zone that he has made his own.

“Left-side 10,” that is how Musiala described it that day in Leipzig. “It is pretty open,” he explains. “You can always rotate to go out wide or come inside, there is space inside for me to turn and dribble into and create chances. It all depends on the opponent how we play.”

PSG will be doing their own thing in Munich with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe to call upon, but do not be too surprised if it is Musiala who is the decisive figure in this Champions League tie. The man who has stepped up since Lewandowski’s departure.
Adam Bate