Julio Baptista- Real Madrid should stop firing coaches

Julio Baptista believes Real Madrid's lack of stability is preventing them from gaining consistent success.
The Spanish side have gone through nine coaches in the last 10 years, during which time they have won just three Liga titles and a Champions League crown.
And former Madrid player Baptista feels that the constant upheavel of the coaching staff is severely affecting the capital club, insisting that a lot of their changes are unneccessary.

"At Madrid if in a year you gain nothing, you don't have to change the coach," Baptista told AS.
"In 2015 under Carlo Ancelotti, Madrid won nothing, but the year before that they won the Champions League.
"Sometimes you have to put things in perspective to see if it is worth making a change."
In his two full seasons at the club, Baptista played under three coaches and he feels that such a lack of consistency affects the Madrid players.

And with Rafael Benitez under pressure as the club sit third in the league and just two points off Barcelona at the top, he maintains they must resist making any hasty decisions.
"Players need stability and changing the coach is no guarantee of success," Baptista said.
"You can hire the best in the world, but there are dynamics and if the players do not understand the coach, it is very difficult to achieve anything in the first year.

"I'm not saying there is a fault, but you have to look at it."
Currently without a club since he left Cruzeiro in the close season, the 34-year-old said he was looking to return to Europe but does not have many options.
"I would prefer to return to Europe, I love Spain," he said.

Blatter named football's most controversial figure of 2015 by Goal readers

Sepp Blatter has been voted as the most controversial figure in 2015 by Goal users - landing over a third of the votes.

The 79-year-old has endured a turbulent year after being in the centre of Fifa's corruption scandal, and although he still denies any wrongdoing, the disgraced president ended 2015 with an eight-year ban from all football-related activity.


Second in the poll was Diego Costa, who crashed and bullied his way through the year with Chelsea and ended up with 16% of the vote.

Real Madrid president and Florentino Perez and Karim Benzema were tied in third with 8% of the vote, while Rafa Benitez and Denis Cheryshev, the man at the heart of the Spanish club's Copa del Rey ban, ended up with 7% of the vote.

Mesut Ozil is now Arsenal’s most influential player ever

The German has racked up an incredible 16 assists already this season - four short of the record - and is emerging as the Gunners' greatest talisman under Arsene Wenger

Mesut Ozil has taken his game to a whole new level this season, so much so, in fact, that no Arsenal side has been as reliant on one single player as the current team are on their German talisman.

After a couple of largely underwhelming seasons following his club-record move, Ozil is now directly responsible for a higher percentage of the Gunners’ Premier League goals than any other player before him.

An astonishing 57 per cent of Arsenal’s 33 league goals this season have been scored or assisted by Ozil – he has only failed to contribute in one of his last 13 matches!

He has contributed a whole 4.9% more than the next best player, Robin van Persie, who scored or assisted 39 of 74 goals in the 2011/12 season, his final campaign at the Emirates.

Ozil is even providing a higher proportion of Arsenal’s goals than Thierry Henry in 2002/03 (51.8%), when the Frenchman scored or assisted 44 goals – the most of any Gunner in Premier League history.

At his current rate, Ozil is on course to rack up 39 combined goals and assists this season, just shy of Henry’s benchmark, but should break his Premier League assists record by February!