Archive for July, 2008

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Gallas keen on sorting out his past mistakes as skipper

July 31st, 2008

Arsenal captain William Gallas have accepted to the media that he committed some great errors for Arsenal last season when he led the side. He has also promised the fans of Arsenal that he would make considerable alter in his attitude and approach.

The leadership of Gallas came under strong scrutiny after Arsenal’s hope to win any challenge was washed away last Christmas and some ugly news followed his way regarding the fact that the captain had lashed out at a hoarding of an advertisement when Birmingham scored a last minute equalizer against Arsenal in February.

One of the things that have got Gallas’s captaincy under the hammer was his leadership skills and the talent to gel a unit. Although, he played the role of a peacemaker during a confrontation between Emmanuel Adebayor & Nicklas Bendtner at White Hart Lane, still the unity seemed missing in the side.

The 30-year old skipper pleaded for another opportunity and claimed that he got to know the game better by playing for Arsenal. He added that it was quite natural of the fact that sometimes he committed some mistakes leading to the downfall of his team. He guaranteed a change in his attitude this season by modifying the way he interacted with the players of his team.

Reports, however, suggests that Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger has not guaranteed Gallas as the skipper. The Gunners Manager as been looking for Gallas’s replacements and Kolo Toure, who plays centre back at the Emirates, would be on highest priority.

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Keane confident of doing well in tandem with Torres

July 31st, 2008

After his long awaited and widely rumoured transfer to Liverpool, former Spurs’ player Robbie Keane has stated that he will love playing alongside Spanish goal machine Fernando Torres.

Keane is twenty eight years of age and is the captain of the Irish football team, and has been signed for 20 million pounds at Anfield.

He said after his successful medical at the club’s training ground that he will love to have a strong partnership with Torres, who was the hero of the just concluded Euro Cup, helping the team to win in the finals against Germany.

Tottenham have now lost one of their star attractions in Keane, the other being four-time Bulgarian player of the year, Dimitar Berbatov, who for most of this transfer season has been an element of curiosity for Manchester United.

Keane now maintains that he has been a life long supporter of Liverpool, and hopes to end their title drought which has now spanned to 18 years. The last time Liverpool won a trophy was back in 1990.

Keane is now expected by the Liverpool manager Rafael Banitez to play as a man behind Torres or as a right winger. This decision can cause a bit of stir considering that the last time he tried this was on Dirk Kyut, and the experiment backfired.

Banitez seems to be truly inspired by the striker’s ability to score goals and play intelligently, which has been dubbed as ‘selfish’ by many critics.

Tottenham Hotspur seems to have gotten wind of this transfer early on, and that is evident from the long list of buys they have had this season.

Other high profile transfers from the Spurs’ side include loaning out of defender Anthony Gardner to newly promoted side Hull and talks over England midfielder David Bently with Blackburn Rovers.

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Posted in Liverpool, Premier League

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Fabregas determined to stay at Arsenal

July 31st, 2008

Arsenal & Spain midfielder, Cesc Fabregas, has informed the media that he is totally committed to play for Gunners and dismissed all reports regarding the fact that he could possibly be shifting to Real Madrid.

A Spanish sports newspaper Marca had published news in its weekend report, which quoted that Cesc Fabregas has hinted about his possible decision to consider a future move to Real Madrid. The newspaper also quoted that Fabregas informed about his possible future move based on the condition that he would move only from his present club, if they miss out in winning any trophy this new season.

It has been a few days before when Spain won the Euro 2008 and Fabregas really played an important and prominent role in steering Spain to the top of the tree in the European Table. The Spanish International therefore denied discussing any sort of transfer plans, either long term or short term, as he said that he is planning to bring an end to his summer holidays and keeping himself motivated to stay with his current club.

The 21-year old from Spain have also stated that he feels really frustrated when the media quotes about his transfers from his current club irrespective of the fact that he haven’t spoke to the media in recent times.

Fabregas also made a statement that he thinks some people are busy making mischief with him by publishing wrong reports. However, he clarified that he has no intentions of leaving the London Club and wants to play for the club helping it to achieve success and win trophies.

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Scolari aims at all four trophies in his first season at Stanford Bridge

July 31st, 2008

New Chelsea manager Luiz Philipe Scolari has said that he will aim on winning all four trophies with Chelsea this season.

In Malaysia for the club’s pre season campaign, the former World Cup winning coach said that he has set up a target of minimum one trophy.

He acknowledges that the club reached three finals last year without a proper manager and things can only get better with changes in the team as well.

Chelsea lost the Carling Cup to Tottenham Hotspur, before losing the Premiership and the UEFA Champions League to Manchester United.

Claude Makelele has left Stamford Bridge to join PSG, Hernan Crespo and Steve Sidwell who is now with Aston Villa, whereas additions to the squad this year include world class playmaker Deco and defender Jose Bosingwa, who are both Portugal internationals.

Until now, Chelsea have won both their pre season matches and scored a total of 11 goals against their oppositions, not to mention the tough pre-season campaigns that their rivals from Premiership are having around the globe including Manchester United. He even waved off the criticism of his side being too old to make it big this season.

It seems ‘ironic’ that Deco, who is a Brazil born player, was never included in the Brazil team by the then coach Scolari, and then represented Portugal. Even today Scolari believes it is the biggest regret to him as a coach. Now, it is in a way ‘iconic’ that Scolari and Deco are together to set the stage on fire.

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Posted in Chelsea FC, Premier League

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Ronaldo’s transfer from Old Trafford: Deal as good as closed

July 31st, 2008

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has been proved right after his counterpart from Real Madrid, Bernd Schuster, confirmed that the Christiano Ronaldo deal is as good as closed, at least for the fact that there are other signings to be made at Real and the club cannot keep waiting for a player, who is not being released.

According to him, C. Ronaldo is not the only signing objective at Real this summer, and if this deal is not going as it should have, there are others to be struck.

He, however, was all praise for both Ronaldo and Ferguson. He said from the club’s pre season training base in Austria that Ronaldo has an unfailing reputation as a team player, and Ferguson should not be blamed for not releasing him. He even added that if he was at Old Trafford, he would have done the same.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese Star has been blamed for a lot of drinking during his rehabilitation in the US. There has been report of him having an affair with hotel heiress and Hollywood starlet Paris Hilton.

As far as Ronaldo is concerned, the midfielder is backed strongly by Ferguson, who even revealed that Man U had a representative with Ronaldo for commercial reasons, and that his holiday to the States was to come irrespective of the circumstances.

Ferguson also said that it is normal for people to change with success, and Ronaldo should not be counted in exception. However, it depends on the person in question how he takes it.

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Posted in Man U, Premier League

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Chelsea thrashes Chengdu Blades 7-0

July 31st, 2008

Chelsea continued their Asian tour on a high by beating the Chinese league club Chengdu Blades 7-0 on Saturday. The players who gave the Stanford Bridge side comfortable lead in the half time at Macau Stadium were Nicolas Anelka, Solomon Kalou and Frank Lampard. In the second half, Chelsea was handed an extravagant lead by Franco Di Santo, Joe Cole and Shaun Wright-Philips.

Paulo Ferreira came in to replace injured Bosingwa who plays in right-back, and the other players, who were included into the club, were Alex and Wright-Philips. In their last match against Guangzhou Pharmaceutical on Wednesday, Chelsea defeated the side 4-0 at the expenses of key players like Ricardo Carvalho, Mikel Obi and key midfielder Michael Essien.

In the match against the Blades, Chelsea gained possession and dominated all the exchanges and the proceedings similar to the start they had on Wednesday’s pre-season opener. There were some excellent shots from Kalou & Essien but both of them were saved dramatically by the Chengdu goalie Lan Yi. Chelsea opened scoring after fifteen minutes of play in the first half.

Anelka went unmarked charging into the opposition’s. When the France striker went passed the Blades’ offside traps, he artistically rounded Lan to hit the ball rolling into the goal. In another terrific attempt, Kalou crossed Lampard to fire the ball into an empty net and the Chinese goalkeeper Lan made a vain attempt to save the goal.

Chelsea made five half-time changes. Cole was introduced as his first pre-season appearance, since he missed the opening game due to lack of fitness. Cole was effective after 2 minutes of his introduction and scored a wonderful goal deceiving the goalkeeper completely.

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Posted in Chelsea FC, Premier League

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Tevez is likely to continue playing for Red Devils

July 31st, 2008

Carlos Tevez is all set to continue with Europe’s most premier club Manchester United. The Argentina striker’s representative confirmed that Tevez has his more future at Old Trafford than any other club.

Tevez would be free to settle with other clubs if Manchester United doesn’t sign a permanent contract by January, since the Argentine striker is on a two-year loan deal with the Old Trafford Club.

The relation between Manchester United and Carlos Tevez has been fantastic so far. He feels lucky to be associated with the Red Devils. The club equally is impressed with him, as his performance has been excellent in the previous season.

Iranian businessman, Kia Joorabchian, told the sources that the club is likely to agree for a deal for the West Ham striker. He also added that his MSI Company, who owned the player since last year, would help Tevez to accelerate the deal and make sure that it goes through. Everyone is looking forward to make sure that the future of Carlos Tevez is dealt in the correct way.

Joorabchian also told the media that the deal between Man U and Tevez should happen in sometime but he wasn’t sure about the schedule of its occurrence.

Manchester United’s chief executive David Gill have admitted that his club had spoken to Carlos Tevez and wants to keep the Argentine player as a part of their long term plans. The only matter that worries now is the time when the deal would be signed. He further went on to praise the playmaker admiring his unstoppable nature, when he gets on the pitch making him one of the best players in the world.

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Ballack hits back at Ferguson on Chelsea’s behalf

July 31st, 2008

Following remarks from Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson that Chelsea is too old a team this season to win any silverware, midfielder Michael Ballack has hit back pointing the example of last season when Claude Makelele, 34 set the stage on fire with Chelsea.

Mekalele is no longer with Chelsea, but Ballack believes that the performance by the midfielder was exactly the counter to the allegations by Ferguson.

German Captain has recently joined the rest of the club squad for a match later today with Chinese Super League side Chengdu Blades at Macau.

Coach Scolari has confirmed that the German playmaker will not participate in today’s match, or Tuesday’s one against a weak Malaysian select XI in Kuala Lumpur. However, he has said that Ballack can get a chance during the Railway Cup at Moscow in the start of August.

Ballack’s late joining to the squad made him come back to the team sans Steve Sidwell, who has left for Aston Villa and Claude Makelele, who has been sold to Paris St Germain. A new and top quality addition to Stamford Bridge this season is Portugese attacking midfielder Deco, who has impressed one and all at the club.

Talking of the transfer fiasco involving Frank Lampard, Chelsea and Inter Milan, Ballack said that he would be more than happy, if Lampard stays at Stamford Bridge, and that all the squad members support him.

In the end, Ballack said that he feels that the squad is better, and they will progress a lot with new coach Scolari.

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Posted in Chelsea FC, Premier League

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Chelsea awaits Jose Bosingwa’s injury reports

July 29th, 2008

London based football club, Chelsea, has informed that it expects to assess fully Jose Bosingwa’s thigh injury today. This decision has come after the scan, which the player was supposed to undergo, was delayed.
Jose Bosingwa, the 25 year old right-back from Portugal, last summer joined the Stanford Bridge side after a transfer from FC Porto. He unfortunately managed to play for only twenty minutes on the field while complaining about a thigh problem in Southern China on Wednesday.
Initially, Chelsea insisted on the fact that the right-back from Portugal was withdrawn from the match, as a part of a precautionary measure. However after sometime, it was revealed that he needed to undergo a scan to determine about the seriousness of the injury.  For this reason, the player was asked to have a scan on Thursday itself. However, due to a sudden change in the schedule of Chelsea’s flight from Guangzhou to Macau for a friendly match against Chengdu Blades, which was to be played on Saturday, the scan was delayed for a day.
Formal Brazilian and now present coach of Chelsea, Luiz Felipe Scolari, told the media on Thursday that they are looking forward for the report of the scan, since the results will have an impact on further pre-season preparation of the player.
If Bosingwa is declared fit enough to be a part of the Chelsea team for the remaining matches of their Asian and Russian tour, he will stay or else he will be returning to London at the earliest.

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Owen fit and raring to go into the new season

July 29th, 2008

Twenty eight year old England international Michael Owen, who had an injury prone time at Newcastle since his arrival in 2004, is now fit and hopes to go into the new season to bring success to the club.

Most of the last season, he was injured, but his return to form in the end of the season marked one of the best goals per match ratios for a limited period, netting seven goals in nine matches. This time, he says that he wants to continue his form.

Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan has confirmed that the man in question, with a year still remaining in his contract, will be captaining The Magpies this season.

Captaining the side most recently since his return from injury in January 2008, he says that there is a new feel good factor in the team now following the end of the season run, in which he showed his talent to keep the team away from relegation.

According to reports, the manager is so impressed by Owen that he has even urged owner Mike Ashley to begin negotiations over a contract extension.

Newcastle United has what seems to be the smallest squad in the Premiership but Owen feels otherwise. According to him, the players are tightly bonded together and that it is honorable to be having so much quality and versatility in such a small squad.

New additions to the St. James Park side this year include Liverpool midfielder Danny Guthrie and Argentinean winger Jonas Gutierrez.

Looking at the continuous insisting of the manager to bring at least four more additions this year seems to prove the point that rumors of players like Shay Given and Charles N’Zogbia willing to leave the club may be real.

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Posted in Newcastle United, Premier League

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