Manchester United were utterly dominant at Old Trafford today as they eased past Sunderland 2-0 to keep themselves at the top of the Premier League table. Sir Alex Ferguson’s men were in complete control from start to finish, with Dimitar Berbatov planting home a header from Wayne Rooney’s cross with just five minutes on the clock.
United were slicing Sunderland open with ease and looked like scoring with almost every attack as Berbatov and then Anderson hit the woodwork later in the first half. Berbatov himself made the points safe within the hour, with the Bulgarian striker bagging his second of the match courtesy of a deflected effort. The result puts United two points ahead of City with two games in hand, but perhaps more importantly five and six points ahead of Arsenal and Chelsea respectively, who meet at The Emirates Stadium tomorrow.
So what five things did we learn about Man United today?
Former Arsenal midfielder Patrick Vieira has stressed the importance of keeping Robin van Persie at the Emirates Stadium.
The Netherlands international is in the last year of his contract at the north London club, and is thought to be stalling on signing a new contract.
With Vieira’s new side Manchester City waiting in the wings and eager to bring the prolific forward to the Etihad Stadium, the Frenchman has admitted that losing their captain would be a sickening blow for Arsenal.
“I think losing Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas last year was a big shock for Arsenal – and if they lose Robin this year, it will be a trauma,” he told Mirror Football.
“When Samir and Cesc left, you could say, ‘OK, but we still have Van Persie and Jack Wilshere at the club.’
“But if Robin leaves, that means next year it may be Theo Walcott, next year it’s Wilshere, and it’s going to be difficult for Arsenal to keep their top players.
“I’m quite surprised they have waited until he has only a year left on his contract to talk to him. It’s difficult to find players of Robin’s quality anywhere in the world with only a year left – especially strikers who can score 34 goals in a season. It’s difficult to understand.
“Robin wants to win trophies – and Arsenal have to prove he can do it with them.
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“We know that Robin loves Arsenal. That is not the question – the real question is how Arsene Wenger will convince Robin they can win trophies,” he concluded.
Rangers’ Champions League hopes have been thrown into disarray after the Scottish champions were beaten 1-0 in qualifying by Malmo FF.The first leg of their qualifying tie at Ibrox on Tuesday was meant to be smooth sailing for Ally McCoist’s men, but an 18th-minute strike from Daniel Larsson was enough to hand the Swedes an unlikely triumph.
The loss continues Rangers’ uneasy start to their overall campaign, after they were forced to come from behind in their Scottish Premier League opener against Hearts to force a draw.
The result means the SPL title holders must score at least once in the second leg next Wednesday at Malmo’s Swedbank Stadion, to avoid an embarrassing pre-group stage exit from Europe’s elite football competition.
Last season’s Europa League quarter-finalists Dynamo Kiev were beaten 2-0 by Russian side Rubin Kazan in Ukraine.
A sixth-minute opener to Alan Kasaev gave the visitors the ascendancy, before Bibras Natkho’s penalty midway through the second half sealed a commanding victory for the Russian club.
Racing Genk pulled off a stunning come-from-behind 2-1 victory over Partizan Belgrade at their Cristal Arena home.
The Belgians were in strife when South African defender Anele Ngongca was shown a red card just past the half-hour mark.
But before the first goal, the sides were both down to 10 when Partizan’s Stefan Babovic was shown his marching orders also in the 48th minute.
Despite their setback, Partizan led on 65 minutes through a Nemanja Tomic goal, which seemingly sparked the hosts into action.
An equaliser within five minutes from the penalty spot, converted by Jelle Vossen, gave the Belgians hope of a result, before Marvin Ogunjimi struck the winner deep into injury time to give Genk the lead heading into a second leg in Serbia.
In other results, Poland’s Wisla Krakow beat Lovech 2-1 in Bulgaria, BATE Borisov, a Belarusian club, held Ekranas to a scoreless draw in Lithuania, Georgian side Zestafoni earned a 1-1 draw at home to Sturm Graz, APOEL’s battle with Slovan Bratislava ended 0-0 while a Marc Janko brace gave FC Twente a 2-0 triumph over Romanian side Vaslui.
Joleon Lescott has admitted he may need to leave Manchester City to preserve his England place.
The former Everton man has failed to assert himself at Eastlands, with City boss Roberto Mancini favouring Vincent Kompany and Kolo Toure ahead of him.
He has often been deployed in the left-back position when he has played, but Mancini is now favouring Belgian teenager Dedryck Boyata in this role instead.
With the January transfer window set to open in less than a month, Lescott has admitted he may be forced to seek regular first team football elsewhere.
Speaking about his situation, he said: "I'm not happy with the situation. I don't enjoy sitting on the bench, and sometimes not even making the bench."
Fuelling the rumours about a possible move, he stressed: "That's down to myself and the club. The club might say 'If there's a chance to play, go and play' and, if not, I will have to stay here."
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Lescott joined City last summer for a fee of £24million.Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
On Saturday, Hartlepool United fans travelled south to London to watch their team to take on League One Champions Charlton Athletic. Football FanCast blogger Chrissy Bell was part of a contingent of 170 smurfs who made global headlines. Here he tells the story of a day the Poolies will never forget:
It’s not every day you dress up as a smurf.
It’s not every day you cake your face in blue (or in my case, cake your face in blue until your constant rubbing wears it off after a couple of hours).
It’s not every day you become London’s main tourist attraction.
It’s not every day you create a worldwide Twitter sensation, by that meaning you trend worldwide.
And it’s certainly not every day you manage to upstage the FA Cup final.
And above all it’s not every day you become famous.
Enough of the everyday’s. But all of the above apply to the 171 fantastically dressed blue and white smurfs who took London by storm and enjoyed a truly memorable weekend.
From an early start of 5:30pm, the look of astonishment coupled with amazement of the taxi driver was just the first of thousands of similar looks throughout the day.
The local press, the Hartlepool Mail, were waiting at the smurfs’ first port call, Hartlepool Train Station. Five hours later and the Mail weren’t the only media outlet following the fancy dress nuts around, however.
Snaking around Eaglescliffe’s train station bridge was the sight of scores of endless white hats and strap-on beards. Next stop: King’s Cross.
And boy oh boy was that the start of the internet phenomenon. Raiding their song book, the smurfs chanted from stepping off the train, through the station, down the escalators, on the tubes, through the streets, in a shocked hotel lobby, in the pubs and in Covent Garden. And that was before the actual football match against Charlton and the night’s journey through London.
Amidst that, news was filtering through that media outlets were broadcasting images, talkSPORT’s Adrian Durham refused to talk about anything other than the smurfs, and onlookers all stopped from their sightseeing, dug deep to find their cameras and clicked the capture button relentlessly.
Covent Garden’s street performers were forced to take an untraditional step back in terms of camera snapping for a change, the Nags Head packed with the joyous and soon-to-be intoxicated smurfs.
The match itself was a good spectacle (Charlton narrowly won 3-2, by the way). But, again, just like so many things on this craziest of days, it played second fiddle to the smurfs. It was reminiscent of a play-off final, the atmosphere.
Following the match the smurfs divided, but the estimated 80+ who remained in the Capital continued soaking up the fame. Some pubs, however, didn’t see the funny side and refused to serve the happy smurfs. Yes, The Round House, I am talking about you!
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Nevertheless, that didn’t deter the fun and they continued to march onwards. Fans from all clubs were coming up to individuals, buying them a drink for their efforts and departing. There was even one occasion when a roughly-spoken Cockney barged into a pub and starting singing ‘Hartlepool, Hartlepool, Hartlepool’.
The word had spread. As Oasis sing: All around the world, you’ve got to spread the word, tell them what you’ve heard. People were certainly adhering to Noel Gallagher’s lyrics.
Big Ben, London Eye, Downing Street, Buckingham Palace: eat your heart out. As on Saturday London had a new tourist attraction that its customers will cherish forever. Not to mention the attraction’s party.
You can find me on Twitter @cmbell310 for more smurf and football chat.
For those of you that were there when we thumped Everton 7-0 on a Wednesday night at Highbury in May 2005, you might recall singing ‘one more year’ to the tune of ‘here we go’ over and over again for the last 20 minutes.
It was our last home game of the season, with a cup final to look forward to, so why were all our voices in accord that evening? The whole of Highbury were saluting the genius of one man, who if I recall correctly, came on as second-half substitute and we were imploring him to sign a one-year extension to his current deal at the club – this man of course was none other than Dennis Bergkamp , and he did indeed sign on for one final year.
Now the circumstances are not the same in 2011, but one could certainly argue that we need Fabregas for one more year now, more than we needed ‘the Iceman’ in 2005. Dennis was in his mid 30’s, and whilst still a remarkable player, the team was not built around him or reliant on him as it had been in earlier years. Indications this week are that Cesc will stay as he has told us himself that only monsieur Wenger can make the decision to sell him and will not ask to leave. However, he will return to Barcelona one day, and with Xavi turning 32, you have to think 2011/12 could be the ‘one more year’ for our skipper.
So I hope he stays, and I hope, as I have said in a previous article last week, that we revert to a four man midfield, but only last week I thought that would be without our uniquely talented Spaniard. With a stronger back four, as we had in the 1998, 2002 and 2004, we do not need a genuine holding midfield player. So I hope we do give the traditional formation a go, but either way, Fabregas will thrive. He is not necessarily a genuine goal-scoring central midfielder yet, but like the great Dutchman before him boy can he create goals for those around him.
I have heard so many tributes to the retiring Paul Scholes, and heard him described as a one of the greatest creative central midfielders of the Premiership era. And for years we have had to suffer the boring debate about which of Lampard or Gerrard is the greater.
Well I am happy to tell you all that when it comes to creativity, vision and pure improvisation, none of them compare to our Spanish talisman. Fabregas was the youngest player in Premiership history to reach 100 assists. In fact, Fabregas reached 100 assists in only 190 games, creating an Arsenal league goal more than every other game. It took the mighty Paul ‘I never learnt to tackle’ Scholes 325 games to reach the same milestone. This is the player that Zidane describes as the greatest English player of his generation? It took Gerrard 332 games and Lampard 354 games to create 100 league goals and before you comment that they both score more goals check your facts. Neither Lampard nor Gerrard came close to scoring double figures in a league season until they were 25, and Cesc did so in 2009/10 at the tender age of 22. At 23, Cesc has 35 league goals for the Gunners, and at the same age, Gerrard and Lampard had 20 and 12 respectively.
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I have given you plenty of evidence there to suggest that our enigmatic captain is the best creative central midfielder in the Premiership in this century. Of course what he is missing to go with this mercurial talent are Arsenal trophies and for that we need proper sensible investment this summer from Wenger and the backing from the board.
By sensible investment I do mean in proven experience Arsene, not unproven French potential. It is not a case now of what Fabregas owes Arsenal, but what Arsenal owes him.
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So let’s make the right defensive signings, keep our best players, and ensure that if our skipper gives us ‘one more year’, he can leave England with more than just incredible statistics, but with a Premiership winner’s medal around his neck, and like Bergkamp, as a true Arsenal legend.
Read more of David Seager’s articles at Gunnersphere
Stoke City manager Tony Pulis has admitted he is facing a potential selection dilemma with several players airing their frustrations.
The Potteries club boss has allowed Michael Tonge and Danny Pugh to depart the Britannia Stadium on loan after finding their first-team opportunities limited.
Republic of Ireland international Glenn Whelan is also wanting more game time after dropping down the pecking order, but Pulis is not prepared to let him, or a disgruntled Eidur Gudjohnsen, leave at the moment.
"We have just let Michael Tonge and Danny Pugh go out on loan to Preston because they are desperate to play," he said.
"Players want to play games and you have to understand and recognise that.
"It is very difficult for players to be sat on the sidelines week in, week out. Glenn has played a great part at this football club and we don't want him to go.
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"I understand the situation he is in and the way he is feeling – that is really the right way to be."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
If you keep your ear close to the ground on all events concerning your football club, you may be aware of the NextGen series; a new European football club competition designed for under-19 footballers founded in 2011. Arsenal and Chelsea are just the latest English clubs to enter the competition for the 2012/13 edition after a successful maiden season whereby Inter Milan beat Ajax on penalties to become champions. Mind-bogglingly, Manchester United remain one of few European elite clubs to shun the competition, with United reserve-team boss Warren Joyce maintaining there is enough quality in reserve without the need for a holistic European experience on top.
What struck me as surprising about this tact was that in this country, we are so het-up about developing youth to build a robust England squad for the future as well as looking on enviously at the German 2010 World Cup Squad with many talents remaining in their infancy. So what better way to get the best out of youngsters than to throw them into their own specially designated tournament?
It is heavily documented and widely applauded that achieving European qualification at first team level is an accomplishment in its own right. Just take Newcastle United and their surprising season. Now they can almost taste Champions League football, Alan Pardew isn’t thinking whether it will be too soon for his squad but he wants to seize the opportunity. Similarly, Arsene Wenger has spoken countless times about European football offering a valuable, money-can’t-buy experience for his youngsters such as Carl Jenkinson and Emmanuel Frimpong who he employed in the group stages this term. So if European experience is lauded as a distinct progression at first team level, surely it should at reserve level also; if not more.
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In my experience, as a youngster, you want to play as much football as you can, but also you want to compete against the best teams to prove you are indeed the best. Warren Joyce’s one-dimensional standpoint is foolish in that his reserve ranks won’t get to find out about differing and potentially advantageous playing styles on the continent, but will blindly just experience English football in a restrictive manner. On the contrary, Liverpool reserve boss Rodolfo Borrell had nothing but praise for the NextGen series.
‘We have enjoyed the NextGen series so far and it has been very beneficial for the lads. They have played in different countries against different styles of play. It has been good for their mentality” (Liverpool Echo).
Borrell’s point is valid in that as a youngster it is not only the football that forges good character but also the team spirit, exposure to travel and multi-faceted experiences which shape well-rounded individuals. The bottom-up approach that players play in different countries and are exposed to what they wouldn’t expect in a Premier reserve league surely means a better grounding and a more holistic upbringing. There have always been criticisms levelled at England national teams in that they play far too slowly, don’t encompass enough technical ability and struggle to acclimatise to differing temperatures. Although, we would be wrong to surmise the NextGen series fixes all of these factors in an instance, surely it would contribute to a better understanding of the problems.
As we know, it has been Manchester United’s prerogative to send many youthful talents to their feeder club Royal Antwerp over the years, with John Cofie being the latest to sample this tried and tested route. Whilst this may forge decent steady characters in the case of Jonny Evans, Danny Simpson, Phil Bardsley and so on, a grounding in the Belgian Second Division surely isn’t as robust as competing against the European elite of youngsters in a governed annual tournament. After all, the latter two examples indeed proved that they weren’t cut out for a long career at United.
We may point to the modern-day examples of Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley currently competing in the first team at Old Trafford after a rise from the schoolboy ranks, but aside from these talents, the United academy has struggled to fast-track youngsters through on a rate as comparable to an Arsenal perhaps. United do have a future squad in place but many younger talents have been poached from other clubs in the cases of Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, the Da Silva twins and Paul Pogba whose future is yet to be decided. Manchester United no longer anticipate a whole batch of home-grown academy stars coming through like their golden generation which yielded talents such as Scholes, Giggs and Beckham but instead have opted to sign the best youngsters from elsewhere as an alternative, most recently that of Frederic Veseli from cross-town rivals Manchester City in the January transfer window. Will Keane, Michael Keane, Ezekiel Fryers and Ryan Tunnicliffe have all received first team experience, but just how far they go remains to be seen. Only time will tell but Manchester United just might regret not signing up as England’s eighth representative in the ever-impressive NextGen series.
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Have United been stupid in their decision not to enter the NextGen series? Follow me @ http://twitter.com/Taylor_Will1989
Liverpool have been linked with a move for out-of-favour Real Madrid midfielder Fernando Gago, according to the Daily Mail.
The 25-year old moved to Real from Argentine side Boca Juniors in January 2007 and has made 121 appearances for the club. However, he has fallen down the pecking order under Jose Mourinho in favour of Xabi Alonso and Sami Khedira and only made 7 appearances last season. With the summer arrivals of Nuri Sahin and Hamit Altintop from Dortmund and Bayern Munich respectively the Argentinean’s opportunities next year could be even more limited.
Real signed the midfielder for a fee in the region of €20 million but are willing to do business for £15 million. However, Liverpool look like starting the bidding at closer to £10 million.
The club have already splashed £20 million on ex-Sunderland midfielder Jordan Henderson and continue to be linked with a move for Blackpool’s Charlie Adam. However, the club must first look to offload high-earners such as Maxi Rodriguez, Joe Cole and Christian Poulsen. The future of Alberto Aquilani is also to be decided whilst Raul Meireles has recently been linked with a move to Inter Milan.
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Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish has also been linked with a move for Newcastle due Jose Enrique and Jonas Gutierrez but has yet to make a move for either player.
Aston Villa boss Gerard Houllier has told Nigel Reo-Coker to curb his temper, after the former West Ham United star almost got himself into trouble during the 0-0 stalemate with Birmingham City.
Houllier substituted Reo-Coker after the midfielder was involved in a tussle with City's Craig Gardner, but he appeared to be keen to continue the argument when he came on to the pitch after the final whistle.
The Villa boss was unimpressed, saying:"Sometimes when you are tired you lose a bit of control and I didn't want to lose a player. I warned them and wasn't happy with the reaction. He will learn.
"We all know how competitive matches in the Premier League are but the Midlands derbies are maybe more so than others.
"You've got to be strong enough to take it on the chin and go on. In that particular circumstance the referee had whistled and it was a free-kick so we should get on with it."
Of the grim stalemate, the former Liverpool boss admitted:"We could have done better. Maybe it's because it's a derby and it's extremely tense, very tight and competitive.
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"Both teams were extremely committed to the job and didn't allow many chances.
"It's a derby and sometimes they are not allowed to play. Credit to Birmingham they had a clean match. It was physical but not over the top and the referee dealt with the two teams very well."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email