Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has stated that he does not believe Manchester United will ‘Park the bus’ in Saturday’s Premier League game between the pair. The visiting Red Devils are currently second in the table. However, they are just four points ahead of the fourth place north London side.

Manchester United have a history of struggling to beat fellow top-six under boss Jose Mourinho. The Red Devils have failed to win any of their last seven away games against their top-six rivals.

Mourinho is now infamous for using defensive tactics in tough away games. These defensive tactics have resulted in his side scoring just once in their seven-game winless run against their rivals while picking up just three points.

Wenger not expecting United to ‘Park the bus’

However, Wenger does not believe United will employ defensive tactics at the Emirates Stadium. When asked if the Red Devils would ‘park the bus’, the veteran French boss told a press conference:

No, I don’t expect anything special. I just expect us to be ready to recover now.

Man Utd is a strong team and I expect us just to cope with the problems they will give us. They will attack as well. They will not only defend.

It is a game between Arsenal and Man Utd at home [the Emirates]. I just want to focus and to prepare well my team, and give my team a good chance to win the game.

Man Utd is doing well at the moment, we are doing well at the moment, so it looks to be a promising game.

Wednesday night victory

The home game against United follows Arsenal’s 5-0 home drubbing of Huddersfield on Wednesday night.

The win means that the Gunners remained in the top-four ahead of Liverpool and arch-rivals Tottenham in the race for the Champions League spots. Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil and Alexandre Lacazette got on the scoresheet, while substitute Olivier Giroud bagged a second-half brace for the Gunners.

The north London side have now recorded three straight wins in the Premier League, as have Saturday’s opponents United. The visitors cannot afford to lose anymore ground on arch rivals and league leaders Manchester City.

Not all good news for Arsenal

While the heavy win over Huddersfield was a welcome one, it was not all good news for the Gunners, as French striker Alexandre Lacazette picked up a groin injury.

The former Lyon star opened the scoring for the Gunners against the Terriers after just three minutes. However, compatriot Olivier Giroud replaced the striker at half-time. Wenger has confirmed that the injury is bad enough to rule the French international out of Saturday’s clash.

Giroud is likely to start up front against Mourinho’s side in Lacazette’s absence after his brace as a substitute against Huddersfield. Wenger also has the option of using former United star Danny Welbeck as the lone central striker.

Alexis Sanchez picked up a slight hamstring injury in Wednesday’s game. However, the Chilean international is unlikely to miss out against United according to Wenger.

Will Manchester United ‘Park the bus’ at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday?

A surge in the use of internet-enabled products has resulted in a rapid growth of B2B (business-to-business) IoT (Internet-of-things) market. The internet enabled products generate a continuous stream of data, which are in demand as it provides accurate insights into the behavior of a potential customer.

In this regard, the Berlin-based IOTA Foundaton, which built a block chain specifically to provide solutions to the IoT sector, has entered into a partnership with over 20 large organizations across the world, including Bosch, Fujitsu, Samsung, and Microsoft.

The crypto token of IOTA is known as MIOTA and has a market capitalization of $3 billion.

The crypto currency MIOTA is listed in Bitfinex, a popular Taiwanese exchange. The currency surged by about 30% yesterday to trade at $1.48 levels, as the news of a partnership broke out. IOTA’s block chain network, which functions as a micro payment-based data market place, is aiming to capture a huge share of the IoT technologies and solutions market which is expected to rise to $267 billion by 2020.

YLGV

IOTA aims to provide crucial market data collected through sensors to various companies for a micro fee. As the company gains market share, the MIOTA crypto currency is expected to appreciate in price. The data collected through sensors can be applied to a wide range of industries, including supply chain, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and even smart cities. In the next few days, the companies who have entered into partnership will be able to access the data streams generated by sensors. The company is planning to deploy dozens of sensors in the weeks ahead.

The crypto coin IOTA is a variant of a block chain, named DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph). The company calls it as “Tangle”. There are no block size restrictions in IOTA crypto currency. Thus, transactions can be done quickly without any additional costs. As transactions can happen quickly with the use of MIOTA crypto currency token, data exchange can be done in a seamless manner.

The decentralized permissionless ledger will host the tamper proof data and sold on IOTA’s market place. To begin with, IOTA will not charge for the data stream. However, from December, the company will enable purchase of data packets and also facilitate building applications through API. For this, visitors will be assigned a wallet with $3 worth of IOTA tokens to test the purchase of data. As the demand for data increases, so will be the value of IOTA tokens.

The Department of Finance (DOF) announced this week that the Philippine government is planning to create a new council that will be tasked to oversee the privatization of casinos owned by the state operator-regulator, which is the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR).

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said in an interview that the department’s current forces will not be enough to handle the sheer amount of PAGCOR-owned properties that will be put on sale, as part of PAGCOR’s restructuring. This new technical council will comprise of representatives from the DOF, the Department of Budget and Management, the Department of Justice, the Governance Commission for Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations, and the Office of the President (OP).

In a statement, Dominguez said,

We have a Privatization Management Office (PMO), but PAGCOR is a special case. It is the licenses that we are privatizing. It’s more technical. Quite frankly, we admit it’s more technical than what the PMO can handle

While Dominguez said the department is ready to push through with the council, the creation of the specialized team would need to be approved by the President Rodrigo Duterte before they proceed. A draft executive order that outlines the whole privatization process of the PAGCOR-owned casinos have been submitted to the OP in September.

Since its conception, PAGCOR has been tasked to run gaming operations and regulate the country’s gaming industry. It has been one of the largest revenue-generating offices for the government and recently reported PHP 42.38 billion in income in October.

In August 2016, the DOF announced that they would be restructuring PAGCOR to turn it into a solely regulating agency. This is to avoid the potential conflicts of interest when it comes to creating regulating policies. Dominguez said that PAGCOR’s 13 Casino Filipino venues and 35 satellite sites across the country will either be sold or shut down. In total, this will be an aggregate of 1,280 gaming tables and 7,205 electronic gaming machines that PAGCRO operates throughout the Philippines.

To further solidify the changes the agency will be going through, House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and House Deputy Majority Leader Juan Pablo Bondoc introduced House Bill 6514, which aims to rename PAGCOR to the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Authority (PAGA). According to the 24-page bill, the name-change will be crucial in the change in the character of PAGCOR, and the strengthening of its regulatory role.

Also included in the proposed bill is the centralization and consolidation of all games of chance under the new regulator. These games have been authorized before by special economic zones within the country such as offshore-aimed iGaming services licensed through the Cagayan Special Economic Zone.

West Brom have appointed Alan Pardew as their new head coach on a two-and-half-year deal. John Carver, who Pardew previously worked with at Newcastle, will join the former Crystal Palace boss at the Midlands club.

Pardew had reportedly been in advanced talks for the last couple of days with the Baggies about the role and last week emerged as the favourite for the vacancy.

Pardew has previously managed West Ham, Newcastle and Crystal Palace in the top-flight, having managed in over 300 games in the Premier League. The former Newcastle boss was fired from his last Premier League job at Crystal Palace, with the Eagles just above the relegation zone when he was dismissed.

Talking about the role the 56-year-old told West Brom’s official website:

The immediate challenge will be to get the results we need to pull ourselves up the table, But I’m aware that while I’m joining one of the great, traditional clubs of English football, it is one determined to go forward in the Premier League

The Baggies are just one place above the relegation zone but could see themselves slip into the drop zone if Swansea and West Ham win their games this evening. The Midlands side had struggled for results under previous boss Tony Pulis, who was sacked on November 20^th. However, under interim boss Gary Megson the Baggies have picked up draws against Tottenham and on Tuesday night Newcastle.

Sam Allardyce set for Everton

Elsewhere, according to a number of media outlets, including Sky Sports, Everton are set to appoint Sam Allardyce as their new boss.

The former Crystal Palace boss originally held talks with the Toffees three weeks ago about the vacant position. However, the two parties could not agree on terms,

Allardyce revealed after the talks that he felt that the Merseyside club had delayed too long in completing the deal, which he saw as a sign that they did not want him badly enough.

Reportedly, a major sticking point was the length of the contract on offer. Everton only wanted to hire the 63-year-old until the end of the season. Following a failed attempt at landing Watford boss Marco Silva and worsening results, it seems the Merseyside club are now ready to offer Allardyce a longer-term deal.

The bookmakers have Allardyce as the favourite for the job at odds as short as 8/11. Shakhtar Donetsk boss Paulo Fonseca and Republic of Ireland boss Martin O’Neill were also believed to be in the running for the vacant position.

Reports suggest that Allardyce could be in charge of the team in time for Saturday’s home game against Huddersfield. However, prior to that clash, the Toffees take on West Ham in the Premier League this evening at Goodison Park.

The visitors could leapfrog the home side in the league and move out of the relegation zone with a victory. Recent history suggests an Irons win is unlikely though, as the team from East London have won just once against the Merseysiders in 15 meetings. The game is likely to be the last for Toffees interim boss David Unsworth. The clubs under-23 boss has won just once since taking over on a temporary basis five weeks ago. A win for the home side could see them move up to 14^th place in the Premier League table.

Who will prove to be the most successful at their new club Alan Pardew or Sam Allardyce?

The special 12 member Nevada Gaming Policy Committee which was formed by Gov. Brian Sandoval will meet on Nov 29 at the Clark County Government Center to hear arguments and presentations for numerous stakeholders from the state’s casino industry, marijuana industry, legal and tax consultants as well as security and compliance experts.

The Gaming Policy Committee was established to review complex issues and policies that the casino industry has to confront and deal with from time to time. The current predicament for Nevada’s casino industry is that the state government has legalized the use of recreational marijuana earlier this year but the federal government does not permit marijuana to be consumed in any form at casino properties which come under federal jurisdiction.

The state gaming regulator had earlier sent out letters to all licensed casino operators in the state informing them that they cannot allow any of their patrons to consume marijuana at their properties. There are many lawmakers and US casino operators who have objected to this stance as they feel that the casino industry is losing out on a lot of revenue by closing its doors to the marijuana industry.

The marijuana industry is now one of the fastest growing industries in the state as both international and domestic tourists travel to Las Vegas to play at the casinos and smoke pot freely. However, that’s not possible current the current gaming regulations. Casino operators also depend heavily on revenue generated from conventions and meetings that are held at their premises.

The recent Marijuana Business Conference and Expo saw more than 700 vendors set up trade booths and over 10,000 people in attendance. Nevada casino operators are unable to open their doors to this lucrative market since the gaming regulator does not allow them to endorse or help promote the consumption or sale of marijuana.

The Gaming Policy Committee will listen to presentations from Cassandra Farrington who heads Marijuana Business Daily, Tony Alamo, Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman, A.G. Burnett, Chairman Nevada State Gaming Control Board, Kile Porter and Deonne Contine of the state Department of Taxation, Station Casino senior executives Paul Camacho who oversees anti-money laundering compliance, ex-Clark County Sheriff Bill Young who oversees compliance and security.

The special committee will review all of the presentations and facts put before them and then decide if they need to meet again to finalize a report before submitting their findings and recommendations to Gov. Sandoval and his team for review.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has revealed that he believes that contract rebels Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil will stay at the club beyond the winter transfer window.

Both players will be free to sign pre-contract deals with foreign clubs in January, as the pair will have just six months left on their contracts in the January transfer window.

The pair have rejected new terms at the north London club. They are expected to move on in the near future. Speculation regarding their futures has dominated the north London clubs headlines in the last year.

At his press conference ahead of the Gunners game with Huddersfield on Wednesday night, Wenger was asked if the pair would be at the club on February 1^st.

The Frenchman replied

Yes, of course. That is what we said many times.

Asked again if the club has completely ruled out selling the pair, Wenger said:

Yes, I rule it out, I do not think every day about that. At the moment I think, as long as they are here, they have to give their best for the team and for the club. In my head, they stay until the end of the season.

That was the decision taken at the start of the season – unless something unbelievable happens, I don’t think it should change.

They are going into the final year of their contract. Will they stay longer? That is impossible to answer today but they have a contract until the end of the season.

PressBureauTV

Linked with moves elsewhere

Alexis Sanchez was reportedly close to making a deadline day move to Premier League rivals Manchester City. However, the Gunners could not find a replacement for the Chilean and the deal fell through. Media reports suggest that the Citizens are likely to renew their interest in Sanchez in the summer. The league leaders would then be able to sign the former Barcelona star without a fee.

Mesut Ozil has been linked with moves to numerous clubs. Manchester United are believed to be the favourites to sign the German international in the summer. Red Devils boss Jose Mourinho previously coached Ozil at Real Madrid and is a big fan of the playmaker.

Ozil a doubt for Huddersfield game

The 28-year-old is a doubt for Wednesday’s game with Huddersfield due to illness. He missed the 1-0 win at Burnley on Sunday and is still a doubt to feature against the Terriers.

Arsenal are looking to record a 13^th straight home win in the Premier League against David Wagner’s team. Town have been poor on their travels in the Premier League, suffering defeats in four of their last five games on the road.

Scoring goals on their travels has been a major problem for the visitors. The Yorkshire side have failed to score in their last five away games in the top-flight. The fact that the Gunners have kept clean sheets in four of their last five home games in the Premier League does not bode well for the visitor’s trip to the capital.

Arsenal returned to the top-four at the weekend with that win over Burnley. Everybody connected with the club with be confident of cementing their place in the Champions League spots with a victory in this clash.

Will Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil still be at Arsenal on February 1^st?

The licenses and concessions given to Macau’s six major gaming operators are set to expire in the next three to five years and casino operators are very interested in knowing what Macau regulators have in mind going forward. However the Macau government remains adamant to conceal its strategy and timeline regarding the renewals.

Macau’s economy is still predominantly dependent on gaming revenue generated by its massive casino industry. Gaming licenses of SJM Holdings and MGM China are set to expire by March 2020. Licenses of the remaining Sands China, Galaxy Entertainment, Wynn Resorts and Melco Resorts are set to expire by June 2022. Macau’s government is likely to impose more stringent regulations before renewing gaming licenses to ensure that its industry is more regulated and incorporates more non-gaming activities.

Macau’s Chief Executive Chui Sai On said during his annual policy address this month that before legislations are finalized, Macau will review the whole $30 billion gambling market. Chui has specifically mentioned that the government will be reviewing non-gaming commitments made by the operators when their licenses were first approved.

Close to 9 percent of the total revenue generated by gaming operators in Macau was already attributed to non-gaming revenue in 2015. This is in line with Macau’s Five-Year Development Plan deadline.

During the plenary sitting of Macau’s Legislative Assembly last week, Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong Vai Tac said that the government will be taking into consideration a variety of factors in drafting and releasing the new regulations which will include region-wide and even world-wide competition.

In a statement during the question and answer session of the plenary, Leong said,

To guarantee its sustainable development we need to pay close attention to international competition. Before we announce the new rules, we need to think about the appropriate time to do so, in order to guarantee the sustainable development of the gaming sector

This is why the Macau government continues to maintain its silence on when and how these new rules on concession renewals take form. Leong noted that if they release the regulations too early, this would allow other jurisdictions to amend and adjust their policies accordingly. Macau wants to stay clear of harsher competition. However the silence is not going down very well with the casino operators.

SJM Holdings Executive Director Angela Leong On Kei urged the government to come out with its plans as soon as possible so as to provide a smoother renewal process for all casino operators. The special administrative region’s gaming bylaws states that the government could renew existing operator contracts for a maximum of five years. Once these concessions expire, renewal can only be granted through an open tender.

Italian giants AC Milan have dispensed with the services of head coach Vincenzo Montella. The Rossoneri have replaced the former Roma striker with club icon Gennaro Gattuso.

Expectations were high at the club that this season the Rossoneri would return to their former glories. The clubs Chinese owners spent big in the summer recruiting the likes of Ricardo Rodriguez, Hakan Calhanoglu and Andre Silva in an effort to challenge for the Scudetto this season.

However, things have not quite gone to plan for the men from Milan. The team currently sits seventh in Serie A after collecting just 20 points from their 14 league games so far this season.

The decision was confirmed by the clubs official Twitter and will come as little surprise to Italian football fans.

The decision to appoint Gattuso may prove to be a controversial one. The former Rangers boss had been managing the Rossoneri youth team. However, his last senior management role was at Pisa, were had mixed results. He helped the minnows to promotion from Serie C, only for his team to suffer relegation last season, despite a very good defensive record. Pisa scored just 22 goals in the Italian second tier, which condemned them to the drop.

Prior to his spell with Pisa, Gattuso had spells in charge of Swiss side Sion, Palermo and Greek side OFI Crete. The Milan job is a major step-up in standard from all of his previous managerial roles.

This season was Montella’s second in charge of the Rossoneri after leading the Italian giants to sixth place last season. A poor recent run of form spelt the end for Montella, as his side had won just two of their last nine games in Serie A. The Italian giants had qualified for the knockout stages of the Europa League under Montella. However, their recent slump in form was enough to lead to Montella’s departure.

Former AC Milan boss Carlo Ancelotti had strongly been linked with returning to the San Siro dugout. Ancelotti spent eight years as AC Milan head coach from 2001-2009, winning the Italian title once and the Champions League on two occasions.

However, the experienced boss is reportedly keen to take a break from football management after leaving German giants Bayern Munich earlier this season, despite being the favourite to be appointed as the next Italy boss. Montella also did not take kindly to the rumours of Ancelotti replacing him in the dugout, stating that he could come and be his assistant if he wanted to return to Milan.

Gattuso’s first game in charge of AC Milan will be a Sunday morning trip to struggling Benevento. The minnows have lost all 13 of their Serie A games so far this season, scoring just six goals in the process.

The game will be an excellent opportunity for the inexperienced Gattuso to get off to a winning start in his new role. The Rossoneri cannot move up the Serie A table, though, as they currently trail sixth-place Sampdoria by six points. The men from Milan are also 18 points behind league leaders Napoli, so the Rossoneri look unlikely to mount a title challenge this season.

Black Friday online sales states for the United States have come in and show that previous consumer records for Black Friday sales have been broken in 2017.

Adobe Analytics recently reported that US retailers have sold a record-high of $5.03 billion through their online platforms, resulting in the biggest Black Friday online sale ever. The numbers are a 16.9 percent increase from Black Friday 2016’s online sales.

According to Commerce marketing firm Criteo, 40 percent of the billion-dollar purchases were made via mobile phones. This is a 29 percent increase from last year’s mobile purchases. If calculated, consumers made just under $2 billion in purchases right from their couches.

The record-breaking Black Friday sales came after Thanksgiving Thursday saw over $2.87 billion in online sales. This brings the two shopping holidays at a total of $7.9 billion in online sales, a 17.9 percent spike from 2016’s.

What’s Trending

Collectively, US e-commerce has grown 17 percent year-on- year. Already $33.26 billion in sales were generated by online retailers in November this year. Adobe is expecting this number to further increase as it predicts another $6.6 billion in online purchases on Cyber Monday.

In a statement, Mickey Mericle, VP of marketing and customer insights of Adobe, said

The big story this holiday season is in mobile shopping. Retailers know this is where the audience is now and are delivering better experiences…Shoppers looking for discounts are getting better at using smartphones to quickly close the deal, and we are seeing better mobile conversion this season at over ten percent growth

According to Adobe Analytics’ close study of the 100 largest web retailers in the US, the two items that sold the most on Black Friday were televisions and computers. Other electronic items that were also huge favourites during the shopping holiday were items such as Apple AirPods, Xbox One X, Nintendo Switch, Sony Playstation VR, Roku and Chromecast. On a per-sale level, each customer’s shopping cart averaged at around $135.

Online sales were found to be strongest earlier in the day, with sales slowing down as the day winded down. As early as 7 a.m. Pacific time, online sales were recorded at $640 million, up 18.4 percent from last year. Analysts believe that customers got up and checked out deals from brick-and-mortar stores as the day progressed. Despite predictions that online sales would immensely impact physical stores, in-store traffic only dropped 1 percent during Black Friday.

Despite the record figures, US’ Black Friday figures still pale in comparison to Alibaba’s Single’s Day in November 11. The Chinese based e-commerce giant reportedly recorded over $25 billion in sales over 1.48 billion transactions on its sites during the 24-hour shopping holiday.

On Sunday afternoon, Southampton recorded a 4-1 home win over beleaguered Everton at St Marys in the Premier League. The Saints enjoyed the better of the first half and took the lead through a well-taken effort by Dusan Tadic on 18 minutes.

The home side continued to dominate possession and have the better of the attacking play.

However, on the stroke of half-time Everton equalised completely out of the blue.

Everton’s club-record signing Gylfi Sigurdsson picked up the ball on the edge of the area and hit a sumptuous effort that hit the bar and both posts before crossing the goal line.

The late first-half goal should have energised the visitors. However, the home side came out stronger in the second half and made their dominance count with two goals in 13 minutes.

The Saints second goal arrived on 52 minutes. England international left-back Ryan Bertrand produced a superb cross from the left and striker Charlie Austin bulleted a header home at the near post, leaving Toffees goalkeeper Jordan Pickford with no chance.

The home side’s dominance continued and six minutes later Mauricio Pellegrino’s side extended their lead. It was almost a carbon copy of the second goal. Bertrand again found space and crossed for Austin to head home.

Everton caretaker boss David Unsworth tried to change things by bringing on young winger Ademola Lookman for Kevin Mirallas. However, it had little effect on the Toffees attacking fortunes. The Toffees also saw England centre-back Michael Keane hobble off with an injury. The Merseysiders day got even worse in the 87^th minute. James Ward-Prowse found Steven Davis just inside the area and the midfielder poked the ball past the despairing dive of Pickford.

The victory was a big one for the Saints, as it moved Pellegrino’s side up to 10^th place in the league. Scoring four goals in one game was also a major boost, as the home side had previously only scored six Premier League goals at St Marys all season. The south coast side had also failed to score in nine of their previous 12 home games in the top-flight. Boss Pellegrino had come in for criticism from the Saints fans. The win will ease the pressure on the Argentinian boss.

The defeat just adds to Everton’s recent misery. The Toffees had now suffered two defeats in the space of three days, conceding nine goals in the process. Unsworth’s side are now 16^th place in the Premier League table, just two points clear of the relegation zone.

The current situation is a grim one for the Merseysiders. The clubs hierarchy are under pressure to appoint a permanent boss. The latest developments in the betting have seen Republic of Ireland boss Martin O’Neill become the favourite for the role.

The 65-year-old’s odds to get the job have shortened to 10/11. The experienced boss has previously managed Leicester, Aston Villa and Sunderland in the Premier League.

Burnley boss Sean Dyche’s odds have also shortened slightly over the past few days, as Everton majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri looks to bring in a boss to steer the club away from danger in the Premier League.