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Tottenham Hotspur have now reportedly launched an opening bid to sign a South American defender for Thomas Frank, receiving an instant response in the process.

Frank: Tottenham "alert" to reinforcements

After Tottenham were booed off at full-time following a 1-1 draw against Sunderland, Frank defended their decision to sell Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace and claimed that those in North London are “alert” to the possibility of reinforcements.

The Dane, downtrodden after another difficult afternoon, told reporters: “I think it’s very important [to say] we took the decision before Mo got injured.

“We don’t know how that looks like, so I think that’s one thing and sometimes when you take that decision, sometimes you can’t delay them if you want to for example.

“Sometimes, you know, the decisions make more sense further down the line and now there was an opportunity to sell a player, which the club hasn’t been that good at in the past. And sometimes that window can be small, if you want to do that.

“You can say that if we had Xavi (Simons) and Mo for today, then I think we have enough but now we, for this game, didn’t have them. Mo only for what 10 minutes? So, there’s just some games where you’re very light and that happens for teams.

“We are really, how can you say, alert. The club really want to see what we can do to strengthen the squad and the team.”

It’s clear that attacking reinforcements are needed, but despite recent links with the likes of Savinho, it could be another defender who arrives first and foremost this month.

Tottenham launch opening bid to sign Souza

As reported by The Athletic’s Elias Burke, Tottenham have now launched an £8m bid to sign Souza from Santos, who have instantly rejected that offer.

The 19-year-old left-back is a rising star in Brazil and has seemingly been earmarked as a player who could end Ben Davies’ Spurs career and provide competition for the likes of Destiny Udogie.

The Brazilian is certainly rated highly, with U23 scout Antonio Mango going as far as to describe him as “aggressive and tenacious” in a raving review last month.

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It remains to be seen whether Spurs return with a second bid. If they do, then it may have to be in the region of €100m (£87m) to trigger Souza’s hefty release clause for clubs outside of Brazil.

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Spurs are looking to upgrade their options in attack

Posts ByDominic Lund

It would be quite the gamble to take on a young player, especially when Frank is desperate for an attacking spark. Nonetheless, the teenage talent is certainly one to watch.

Former Sunderland striker Don Goodman heaped praise on one Arsenal man who showed “unbelievable awareness” alongside Declan Rice against Bournemouth.

Rice stars as Arsenal edge past Bournemouth

Rice scored a second-half brace as Arsenal fought from behind to complete a thrilling 3-2 win against Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium.

Evanilson took advantage of Gabriel’s misplaced pass to put Bournemouth ahead after just 10 minutes. However, Gabriel atoned for his error when he struck back just six minutes later.

Rice, who missed his first Premier League game of the season with a knee injury in Arsenal’s 4-1 rout of Aston Villa on Tuesday, then put the Gunners ahead after 54 minutes before adding a second with 19 minutes to go.

Eli Junior Kroupi landed a brilliant strike from range just five minutes later to provide Mikel Arteta’s side with a nervy finish, but the visitors held on to move six points clear of Villa.

Bournemouth started November second only to Arsenal, but they are now 11 matches without a victory – their longest winless streak in the top flight – and sit just three places above the relegation zone.

The Cherries are also poised to lose their top scorer this month, with Antoine Semenyo – despite completing 90 minutes here – seemingly bound for Arsenal’s title rivals Manchester City.

Pep Guardiola’s side will have the chance to trim Arsenal’s advantage back to four points when they host Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

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Arsenal are in a strong position and can afford to be picky in the winter transfer market.

Posts ByAngus Sinclair

Up next, Arsenal face the visit of Liverpool as they look to make yet another title statement. Although up against a stuttering Liverpool side, the Gunners will be well aware that the current champions will be keen to do damage to to the next in line for the throne.

Once again, it’s a game that Rice could prove to be crucial, but like against Bournemouth, he’s not the only one who could star.

Goodman praises "unbelievable" Odegaard

Following a disappointing 2025 on an individual basis, Martin Odegaard assisted his first goal from open play in 2026 and followed on from his involvement against Aston Villa last time out.

Subscribe to the newsletter for Arsenal insights Want sharper match analysis? Subscribing to the newsletter gives in-depth player breakdowns, tactical reads and context that make sense of performances like Odegaard’s awareness and Rice’s goals – ideal for fans who want smarter takeaways.

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Whilst Rice stole the headlines with his brace, it was the £240,000-a-week midfielder who earned the praise of Goodman on Sky Sports’ commentary when he assisted his teammate’s first goal of the evening.

By the time that the Arsenal captain left the pitch after 80 minutes, he had an assist to his name and a performance worthy of keeping Eberechi Eze out of the side.

Odegaard vs Bournemouth

Stats

Minutes

80

Assists

1

Passes into final third

8

Tackles

3

After a number of injury issues, to say it would provide Arsenal with the ultimate boost if Odegaard rediscovered his best form would be an understatement. At his best, he is simply unplayable.

WAPDA sitting prettySalman Butt’s Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) are in prime position to reach the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy final, becoming the only side in the competition to win both Super Eight games, and opening up a ten-point lead in their group. Batting first against United Bank Limited (UBL), they posted 243 and conceded a 32-run lead to UBL, for whom Mohammad Nawaz, who has had an indifferent tournament with both bat and ball, marked a return to form with 88, while Umar Siddiq score 67.Butt took charge in the second innings, top-scoring with 66, but lack of support from his teammates meant WAPDA could only set UBL 189 to chase. As it turned out, that was more than enough for the WAPDA bowlers, particularly Waqas Maqsood and Zahid Mansoor, who took four wickets each as HBL succumbed for 131, virtually guaranteeing their opponents a final berth.Runfest or bowlers’ paradise?The game of the round took place between a Mohammad Hafeez-led SNGPL and Usman Salahuddin’s Lahore Whites. SNGPL scored a near-impregnable 411 in their first innings, thanks to a century from Khurram Shehzad, with Iftikhar Ahmed posting 87 and Asad Shafiq chipping in with 59. Lahore Whites responded relatively solidly, an unbeaten 96 from Mohammad Mohsin and half-centuries from captain Salahuddin and Hamza Akbar helping them to 344.Trailing by 67, the Whites needed to dismiss their opponents quickly. Their bowlers seemed well aware of what was required, taking just 36 overs to send SNGPL packing for 93, 39 unbeaten runs coming from Hussain Talat. A target of 161 gave the Whites a shot, but their batsmen, too, looked to have caught the bug afflicting SNGPL. It took just 29 overs for SNGPL to skittle them out for 88, with Mohammad Abbas taking five wickets to put his side two points clear at the top of Group 1.HBL cruiseSalman Afridi carried his bat in the first innings for Habib Bank Limited (HBL) to set up a comfortable seven-wicket win. HBL scored 252, before their bowlers blew away Lahore Blues for 68, Umar Gul taking five wickets and forcing Saad Nasim’s side to follow on. They did put on a vastly improved show in the second innings, Nasim himself top-scoring with 60, but the damage had already been done. They could only set HBL 93 to win, which they achieved comfortably for the loss of three wickets to leapfrog the Blues to second position in the table.Fawad watch Fawad Alam’s side did win by six wickets, but he missed out on the opportunity to bolster his credentials for an international recall, scoring a duck in the first innings. He did hit the winning runs for his side, however, finishing the second innings unbeaten on 19 as SSGC chased down KRL’s target of 182 to keep his side in with an outside chance of qualifying for the final.

Sources close to Sachin Tendulkar said he was inclined to announce his retirement on this tour but was persuaded by friends to do so at home © Getty Images

Sachin Tendulkar is seriously contemplating retiring from one-day cricket after India’s home engagements against Pakistan and Australia later this season, it is reliably learnt.Tendulkar, one-day cricket’s most prolific and dominant batsman, will, however, continue playing Tests and will travel to Australia in December.Sources close to Tendulkar said he was inclined to announce his retirement on this tour but was persuaded by friends to do so at home. India are scheduled to play seven ODIs against Australia and five against Pakistan before the end of the year.Tendulkar had, along with Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly, opted out of the forthcoming World Twenty20 in South Africa.Earlier this week, he told the of the toll one-day cricket was taking on his body. “I enjoy every moment I have on a cricket field, but the recovery times between games these days are difficult, especially for one-day internationals, and that’s my major obstacle,” he said. “It does take its toll on the body. When you are 22 or 23, you recover a lot more quickly. But at 34, it’s not so easy.”His innings at The Oval on Wednesday provided evidence of that; the last few minutes saw him hobbling with cramps, barely able to run the singles and, after his dismissal, taking a long time to climb the stairs to the dressing room.Most of that innings, though, was spent in the kind of form he has displayed through this tour, one on which he showed he’d lost little of his formidability in one-day cricket. He began with two 90s against South Africa in Ireland, helping India win the series from being one down.Restored to the top of the order after an indifferent World Cup where he batted in the middle order, Tendulkar has allowed himself the freedom to play the strokes of his majestic youth – the majestic cover drive, the pull and the lofted drive down the ground – and runs have flowed, both consistently and quickly.In ten innings in the series so far, he has plundered 548 runs, with four 90s, at a strike rate of 84.3. The tour also reunited him with his opening partner Sourav Ganguly, and the pair, the most prolific in the history of one-day cricket, added four more century partnerships to take their tally to 25, 16 of them for the first wicket.Tendulkar is 34 but already has 18 years of international cricket behind him; his 140 Tests and 394 ODIs have fetched him more than 25,000 runs, the most in international cricket.He has before him the example of Shane Warne, who gave up one-day cricket in the last stage of his career to help him play more Tests.

Scorecard

James Bruce claimed 4 for 29 in Hampshire’s victory © Getty Images >

Hampshire took advantage of Gloucestershire’s depleted bowling resources to inflict their first Pro 40 defeat in a rain-affected match at Bristol.Gloucestershire, missing Jon Lewis, their captain, on England duty, and the injured Ian Harvey, conceded 83 from their last six overs, as Dominic Thornely (60*) and Dimitri Mascarenhas (43* from 21 balls) fired Hampshire to 226 for 6 from a revised 33 overs.Gloucestershire were never in the hunt, and were all out for 114 with James Bruce claiming 4 for 29.The win lifts Hampshire into fourth place, a apoint behind Gloucestershire who remain level on points with Worcestershire at the top of the table.

Indians 365 for 2 (Sehwag 123, Gambhir 126, Dravid 102*) lead Zimbabwe Board XI 294 for 9 (Ebrahim 169, Dabengwa 60, Kumble 5-48) by 71 runs

Virendar Sehwag lofts another boundary during his powerful 123 © AFP

Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Rahul Dravid scored centuries against a Zimbabwe Board XI as they gained valuable practice ahead of next week’s first Test. By the close India had amassed an imposing 365 for 2, a lead if 71 runs after the Board XI had declared their innings during the morning session.Dion Ebrahim, the star of the opening day with an impressive 163, could only add six runs before he was snapped up by VVS Laxman at second slip after a rebound from Dravid and Keith Dabengwa advanced from his overnight 40 to a useful 60. Both now seem near certainties to make the Zimbabwe Test squad of 14, with the best eight players from this match in Mutare joining the six already selected for Bulawayo, starting on September 13.Anil Kumble continued to be the pick of the Indian attack and completed a five-wicket haul to boost his confidence before the Tests, although the lack of penetration from the seamers will be a concern for the Indians. However, once Hamilton Masakadza, the Board XI captain, declared the day was dominated by the Indian batsmen.Sehwag was at his flowing best, racking up a fluent 123 runs in 118 balls, including two sixes and 22 fours. He was the senior partner in an opening partnership of 197 with Gautam Gambhir, who went on to make 126, including a six and 16 fours.After Gambhir finally departed Dravid came into his own to record the third century of the day although he was missed at slip on 49. However, the three India century makers will not go into the record books as this is not an official first class match.

Williams misses out on Top End chance© Getty Images

Brad Williams, the Australian fast bowler, has been ruled out of the two-Test series against Sri Lanka which begins in Darwin on July 1. Williams, who was sent home early from last month’s Zimbabwe tour with a lower-back injury, has not recovered sufficiently and though he was named last week in a 13-man squad, his selection was subject to a fitness test which was due to be held in Brisbane this week.Trefor James, Australian team doctor, said, “Brad has not recovered enough from the back injury he sustained in Zimbabwe to resume full training and has therefore been ruled out of the forthcoming series against Sri Lanka.”Williams now hopes to recover in time for the ICC Champions Trophy, to be played in England in September. “It’s a disappointing result,” said Williams. “I really haven’t played that much cricket over the last couple of months and I was looking forward to rejoining the team in Darwin.””I was confident I’d be available for selection and had started some light training but it doesn’t look like I’ll be in a position to increase my intensity levels for another couple of weeks. I’ll continue to work on my rehabilitation with the guys here in Perth and I’m sure I’ll be ready to go in time for the ICC Champions Trophy.”The Australian selectors had not yet made up their mind on a replacement, and would name one in due course.

Crowds for the Twenty20 Cup group matches are currently running nearly three times higher than for the equivalent games in the old Benson & Hedges Cup.In the 18 games to date the total crowd attendance has been 80,350, which tops the figure of 68,018 spectators for all the 45 Benson & Hedges Cup group matches in 2002. A further 27 group matches remain in cricket’s newest competition.The average attendance for Twenty20 Cup matches to date is three times higher than for Benson & Hedges Cup group matches in 2002 – an average of 4,464 per Twenty20 group match so far compared to an average of 1,511 per Benson & Hedges group match last season.ECB Marketing Manager, Stuart Robertson, said,

The 2003 Cricket World Cup will be the "best" and "cleanest" to date, Lord Condon, the director of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit, said on Monday. But whether it will be the safest, in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington, simply cannot be guaranteed.Lord Condon was speaking at a joint media briefing of the ACU and the World Cup Security Directorate, to which the match-fixing commissioner has accepted an invitation to join.Accompanied by senior investigator Jeff Rees and support manager Bob Smalley, Lord Condon is in South Africa for five days during which time he will visit Cape Town for meetings with Frank Kahn, the Director of Public Prosecutions for the Western Cape who is currently investigating the state of Hansie Cronje’s indemnity against prosecution, the South African sports minister Ngconde Balfour and the British High Commissioner Ann Grant.The intention is to keep the 2003 CWC free from both match-fixing and the type of pitch invasions seen at Edgbaston and Headingley this year. With a budget of R8-million the Security Directorate, headed by Patrick Ronan and which includes Rory Steyn, Nelson Mandela’s former bodyguard, together with Lord Condon, these ambitions may well be realised.But as last Tuesday’s terror attacks demonstrated with such enormity, no potential target can be ruled completely secure and it is by no means certain that major sports events and packed stadia will be exempt from attack. It is likely, for instance, that Pakistan and India will meet during the World Cup at the Wanderers, South Africa’s biggest cricket stadium. With Pakistan having been thrust, however unwillingly, into centre stage in the terrorism crisis, it is not hard to imagine circumstances in which the staging of such a match would amount to the utmost folly.The ICC has already acknowledged that world events have intruded into the playing of sport by shifting its October board meeting from Lahore to Malaysia. It is by no means inconceivable that the meeting might have to be cancelled altogether.Of course, the World Cup is still 17 months away and the extent and effectiveness of the United States’ response to the attacks remains to be seen. And before South Africa hosts cricket’s premier one-day tournament, the football World Cup will be staged in Japan and South Korea while the Winter Olympics will be held in Salt Lake City.There were warnings at the media briefing against over-reaction and paranoia as well as talk of co-operation between the South African Government, law enforcement agencies, parastatals and the private sector. And fears that South Africa could find itself dragged into an international conflict may well prove unfounded.But as Ben van Deventer, a senior South African Police Services official and member of the Security Directorate conceded afterwards: "You can do things like establishing `no-fly’ zones around venues. The problem is enforcing them."

Perth – Brian Lara let his bat – and an Australian Cricket Board (ACB)official – do the talking for him yesterday. The star left-handedbatsman has advisedly kept his silence following allegations inIndia’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) report last week that hetook money from a bookmaker to underperform in matches back in 1994.And yesterday he stroked 108 off 107 balls in the first match of theWest Indies’ Australian tour against an ACB Chairman’s team at LilacHill, a Perth suburb.He and opener Sherwin Campbell, who batted through the innings’ 50overs for an unbeaten 111, added 163 off 27.1 overs as the West Indiespiled up 276 for two.The bowling comprised of mainly Western Australian second team playersand retired Test left-arm fast bowler Mike Whitney, now 41.A rainstorm that swept the ground as the West Indies innings endeddeprived the large crowd of any more cricket and the new West Indiesbowlers their first chance of getting acclimatised.Lara did not speak directly to the media afterwards but passed histhoughts on through an ACB official.’It’s been a tough week but everything will come to fruitioneventually, I hope,’ Lara told the official.’I have responsibilities to West Indies cricket not to let otherthings affect me so I’ll just put on the blinkers and go out and do mybest by getting runs,’ he added.’Today was good. I hit the ball well. Now I have to get set to play alonger innings in the four-day match against Western Australiastarting Thursday.’Lara came to the wicket in the 21st over after Campbell and 21-yearold Daren Ganga added 87 for the opening partnership.Ganga, who is on his third West Indies tour, played impressively for43 off 52 balls. He stroked six fours, mainly in front of the wicket,before he was bowled by 20-year-old left-arm pacer Steve Nikitaras.Lara, in his first innings since the England tour on September 4,started so cautiously that he scored only two runs off his first 20deliveries.After that, he hit the ball cleanly and confidently, reaching his 50from 52 balls and his 100 from 97.By the time he was caught in the deep off Jo Angel, the 32-year-oldformer Australian Test fast bowler, he had 11 fours and three sixes inhis column in the scorebook.’This start was very significant for us,’ Lara noted. ‘We are lookingto get the team back on a good footing.’We need to be competitive so even a good performance in a festivalgame is a boost,’ he said.