• Rovers hoped to pick up striker on a free transfer
• Tony Pulis wants £1.75m for out-of-favour Beattie

Blackburn Rovers have failed in an attempt to re-sign James Beattie after being told that Stoke City are looking to recoup a significant sum for the former England striker despite the manager Tony Pulis’s desire to move on a player he clashed with last season.

Blackburn had hoped that, with Stoke keen to get Beattie, one of their highest earners, off the wage bill, there might be a chance to pick up a player who started his career at Ewood Park on a free or for a nominal fee. However, Stoke have signalled that they would be looking for about £1.75m for Beattie, who cost them double that amount when he joined from Sheffield United in January 2009. Stoke also informed Blackburn that they would not consider loaning Beattie to one of their Premier League rivals.

Beattie clashed with Pulis at the Emirates Stadium in December, when the Stoke manager is alleged to have headbutted the forward following a disagreement over the club’s Christmas night out. The 32-year-old served a grievance procedure against Pulis but an investigation failed to find in his favour.

He made only one more appearance for Stoke after that episode and was left off the club’s pre-season trip to Austria along with Dave Kitson, another striker who is available for transfer this summer.

Blackburn RoversStoke CityTransfer windowStuart Jamesguardian.co.uk

Liverpool could be nervously looking over their shoulder, Sam Allardyce deserves more credit and Leeds aren’t chokers after all

Liverpool may be a long time gone

While Chelsea, 8-0 victors over Wigan Athletic, cavorted around Stamford Bridge with the Premier League trophy, Steven Gerrard, whose Liverpool side had shambled to a 0-0 draw at relegated Hull City, was scrambling through a mini-pitch invasion at the KC Stadium as a few overamorous Tigers fans attempted to cop a feel or make off with his captain’s armband. It was a finale somehow befitting of Liverpool’s season and not exactly the finale that the England midfielder would have pictured.

Arguably the crucial self-destructive period in the Reds’ campaign came between the end of September and Christmas when they picked up 12 points from 11 games (fewer, for example, than Portsmouth), although inconsistency has blighted them throughout – Rafael Benítez’s side won four games back to back in August and September, but won consecutive league games only three more times after that early spurt.

The only solution is an overhaul. Seventh is their lowest league finish since 1999 (and it’s a ‘depth’ they have plunged to only three times in the past 44 years). The team that ended the last season of the century under Gérard Houllier – Friedel, Staunton, Song, Matteo, Carragher, Berger, Redknapp, Ince, Leonhardsen, McManaman, Riedle – was rapidly broken up, the Frenchman spending over £30m the following season in an attempt to reinvigorate the club. Though it didn’t get them much closer to the title (they were 25 points off the pace in 1998-99 and 24 in 1999-00) it did at least bring a return to the top four.

The problem for Liverpool is that Benítez is unlikely to have even that fairly paltry sum (in Premier League terms at least) to spend this summer. With Manchester City revving up for another spree and Tottenham, already a better team than Liverpool, likely to be bolstered by an influx of Champions League money, those at Anfield may be nervously looking over their collective shoulder next year. If the season had started at Christmas, Everton would be third …

Sol Campbell shouldn’t go to the World Cup

Though it’s an indictment of the very average seasons endured by the likes of Joleon Lescott and Matthew Upson that Fabio Capello should even be considering England World Cup recalls for Jamie Carragher and Sol Campbell, the latter’s display yesterday should put the final nail in that coffin.

The Arsenal defender creaked against Fulham – and should have given away a penalty when compounding his heading error and grappling with Clint Dempsey in the box. It was always going to be an outside chance anyway, but Gary Cahill, Phil Jagielka or Michael Dawson have all done more to earn their chance.

Spurs may be in the Champions League but they’re still Spurs

Whisper it, but the Fiver might have got it wrong. Tottenham Hotspur really are still funny. Which other team could qualify for the Champions League and, in the same week, become the first team since West Ham in February to get beaten at Burnley? The last visiting team to concede four at Turf Moor? Bristol City, almost exactly a year ago.

Sam Allardyce deserves a bit more credit

Last summer the writing seemed to be on the wall for Blackburn. Rovers had finished 15th, as bad as it has been for them in the Premier League since relegation in 1999, and it had taken a Sam Allardyce escape act to save them from the drop. Roque Santa Cruz left for Manchester City, Stephen Warnock high-tailed it to Aston Villa, the reliable Andre Ooijer headed back to Holland and PSV Eindhoven, Tugay called it a day. Even perennial superbsub Matty Derbyshire took himself off to Olympiakos.

Yet Allardyce has turned his team around and steered them into 10th. Yes, 10th, ostensibly hardly the sort of finish to prompt the popping of champagne corks and ticker tape parades, but for a club of Blackburn’s side (and, more importantly, wealth) a real achievement. Despite the relative flop of last summer’s big purchase, £6m Nikola Kalinic, who has mustered two league goals all season, they’ve ended up level on points with Birmingham, and if Alex McLeish deserves a huge amount of credit for leading Blues into the top half on the back of promotion (and he does), then Allardyce deserves a bit too.

It can be eye-pokingly painful to watch at times, but in a league where cash, money and dosh are the holy trinity, the Rovers hierarchy will be more than happy to overlook aesthetics. “The difference those results make is four places in the league and four times £800,000,” Allardyce said yesterday. “That’s a big difference to our limited budget.”

Leeds United aren’t the chokers we thought they were

3 January 2010 was a good day to be a Leeds fan. United sat eight points clear at the top of League One with a game in hand on second-placed Norwich. They’d lost just once all season and, to top it off, Manchester United had just been vanquished at Old Trafford in the FA Cup.

But between the turn of the year and the start of April, 16 games yielded just 15 points. That run destroyed any hope of claiming the title and they went into Saturday’s final game of the season needing a win to be sure of clinging on to automatic promotion and returning to the division they departed through the trapdoor in 2007.

On Saturday they went down to 10 men – Max Gradel having utterly lost the plot – and then 1-0 down against Bristol Rovers three minutes into the second half at Elland Road, just as Charlton took a 2-0 lead at Oldham. At that point, with Millwall and Swindon drawing, the Addicks were heading for promotion. Jon Howson equalised at Elland Road, but just after the hour Gordon Greer’s own goal put Millwall 2-1 up, the Lions into the promotion places and sparked a mini-pitch invasion at the Den.

That might have been that. But within seconds Jermaine Beckford, the beneficiary of a horrendous goalkeeping error, bundled in the decisive Leeds goal and brought rapture to West Yorkshire. So Leeds aren’t chokers after all. The Championship’s top 10 next season is not an impossibility.

Premier LeagueLeague OneLiverpoolSol CampbellTottenham HotspurSam AllardyceBlackburn RoversLeeds UnitedJohn Ashdownguardian.co.uk

Blackburn came from behind to move up three places into the top half of the table, leaving Arsenal still short of the point they need to make sure of third place. In a game in which all the goals came from corners, two mistakes from Lucasz Fabianski that led directly to both home goals only served as a reminder that Arsenal still need to invest in a reliable goalkeeper.

Robin van Persie’s first goal in six months put Arsenal in front after 13 minutes, the Dutch striker finishing off an old-fashioned near-post corner routine after Bacary Sagna flicked on Samir Nasri’s cross. Conceding from any sort of set piece never puts Sam Allardyce in the happiest frame of mind, though the lead was no more than Arsenal deserved. They could have been ahead as early as the second minute had not Carlos Vela missed the target when a mistake by Gael Givet allowed Theo Walcott to roll the ball invitingly across the face of goal.

Allardyce had been relaxed enough about this game to take in the Wigan v Hull match earlier in the afternoon, reportedly checking the relegated Tigers for possible bargains. Blackburn had nothing in particular to play for here, though Allardyce’s summer spending plans are probably based on a mid-table finish rather than a position just above the relegation candidates.

With every league place dropped counting as money lost, the Blackburn hierarchy will have been relieved to see David Dunn grab an equaliser before the interval, while the travelling Arsenal support would not have been surprised to see another goalkeeping misjudgement cost their side. Fabianski had done reasonably well in keeping out a couple of Morten Gamst Pedersen shots from free kicks, but when he came for a 43rd minute corner and missed he left Dunn a simple tap-in once Keith Andrews had returned the ball back across the six yard line.

Arsenal’s reserve goalkeeper went some way to redeeming himself with good saves from Pedersen and then Junior Hoilett at the start of the second half as Blackburn began to exert some pressure, before Martin Olsson saw a goal disallowed for a borderline offside. Fabianski was almost as relieved as Mikael Silvestre when the defender’s sliced clearance nearly produced an own goal, only for his luck to run out from the subseqent corner when a woeful attempt to punch away Pedersen’s cross simply allowed Chris Samba a free header right under the crossbar.

This time Fabianski did not so much come for the ball and miss as fail to assert himself on his own goal line. Pedersen cleverly delivered his corner into the area where the goalkeeper, rather than his centre-halves, would have to deal with it, and Fabianski fatally allowed himself to be crowded out.

Arsène Wenger had been unhappy with Blackburn’s persistent fouling of Van Persie earlier in the game, Vince Grella in particular pushing his luck after picking up a booking and Pederson also being cautioned for a badly mistimed tackle, though in the end the Arsenal manager had no choice but to contemplate the weaknesses in his own side.

Apart from Fabianski, Walcott was largely anonymous once again, Vela was negligible and even Van Persie faded towards the end. “Blackburn defended well and were sharper than us in the fight, but it was a poor game,” Wenger said. “We were not good, but I thought Lucasz was fouled on both occasions. The referee has to give a goalkeeper more protection than that. Blackburn do it very well, but in football if you don’t go for the ball, if you push the opponent inastead, then it is a foul. I thought Lucasz had a good game.”

An unrepentant Allardyce simply grinned when informed of Wenger’s complaints. “We beat them fair and square,” he said. “We did identify the goalkeeper as a weak line and tried to play on that, putting in plenty of crosses and putting him under pressure, but you are allowed to do that. The referee gave some fouls that perhaps weren’t, and missed some that possibly were, but we caused them problems in that area. If you play on your opponents weaknesses eventually they will be exposed.”

Arsenal now need a point or more from their final games against Fulham to make sure of third. “We are playing at home,” Wenger said. “I don’t think we need to worry about what Tottenham or Manchester City do.”

Premier LeagueBlackburn RoversArsenalPaul Wilsonguardian.co.uk