Taiwo Awoniyi – Royal Excel Mouscron
Coming back from the international break, Royal Excel Mouscron suffered a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Anderlecht. It was a considerable improvement on the last time the two sides met, as almost a year ago, Anderlecht put seven goals past Mouscron without reply. Taiwo Awoniyi was largely ineffective on Saturday, being involved with very few attacks of any worth. The 20-year-old needs to work on his consistency, as he scored three goals in four games in September, but hasn’t notched a single strike in the six games that have followed. Mouscron now find themselves without a league win in seven games, and have fallen to 11th place in the table.
Pedro Chirivella – Willem II
Pedro Chirivella was forced to be substituted after just 40 minutes at the weekend, when he suffered an injury. With his side trailing 2-0 at home to Sparta Rotterdam, Chirivella was replaced and Willem II fought their way back in the second half to secure a 2-2 draw. The Spaniard was having a decent game up until that point and will be hoping that the injury isn’t too serious and that he can continue his loan spell as soon as possible.
Allan Rodrigues – Apollon Limassol
For the first time in his Apollon career, Allan played the full 90 minutes in a league match during the emphatic 4-1 away win over Alki Oroklini. After picking up an early yellow card, just five minutes into the game, Allan settled down a put in a very solid performance in the centre of midfield. He continued to battle well to win back the ball on several occasions and he distributed possession with high quality and precision. He managed a speculative shot of his own from about 25 yards out, but his effort was comfortably handled by the goalkeeper. The win puts Apollon to fourth in the table, but with three games in hand on the league leaders.
Divock Origi – Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg vs SC Freiburg was a fixture that we were looking forward to as it was set to pit Divock Origi against Ryan Kent for the first time. However, Ryan Kent (SC Freiburg) wasn’t in the matchday squad, while Origi was named on the bench. The Belgian came into the game after 87 minutes and had no time to make any noteworthy contributions. The match finished 3-1 to Wolfsburg who are 13th, while Freiburg are struggling at 17th out of the 18 teams.
Connor Randall (Hearts) and Shamal George (Carlisle United) were both unused subs for their respective teams, while neither Jordan Williams (Rochdale) nor Toni Gomes (Forest Green Rovers) weren’t even on the bench this weekend.
Sheyi Ojo (Fulham) is continuing to recover from his dislocated shoulder and has been back in training for the first time this week. He will be hopeful to return to action either on Tuesday against Sheffield United or next weekend at home to Millwall.
Rumours
We are approaching January which means there is a chance that we may see a few more members of the squad heading out on loan. The biggest story is coming from Sunderland, where new manager, Chris Coleman is apparently interested in bringing in Welsh duo, Danny Ward and Ben Woodburn. Obviously, Coleman is familiar with the pair thanks to his time in charge of the national squad and believes they would be perfect additions to his new club. Ward is comfortably third choice at Liverpool and could very well be the answer to Sunderland’s goalkeeping woes. Woodburn is a very high prospect for the future and a spell in the Championship would likely do wonders for his development.
Newcastle are reportedly interested in taking Danny Ings for six months. The striker has suffered considerable injuries over the last couple of years and has recently just returned to almost full fitness. With no obvious way into the Liverpool squad at the moment, a temporary move to Newcastle, with regular Premier League football, could be just what he needs. On the subject of strikers, there is talk of new signing, Dominic Solanke potentially heading out on loan. The club being talked about at the moment is Southampton, but no reliable sources are currently reporting this.
Heading into the youth ranks, Kamil Grabara has told Polish media that he is keen for a loan move in the year, in the hope of getting some first team football. The 18-year-old goalkeeper has six clean sheets in 12 matches this year, which include two penalty saves.
