All posts by h79snht.top

The nature of Raul Meireles’ move from Liverpool to Chelsea still remains unclear, as the player has stated that the club made him hand in a transfer request, and the Anfield outfit claiming he asked to leave of his own accord.

The Portugal international made a last-gasp move to Stamford Bridge on transfer deadline day, which angered some Reds fans, but the midfielder has stated he was forced out of Merseyside.

“All I have to say is that I had one promise at Liverpool which wasn’t fulfilled. Liverpool asked me to hand in a transfer request, so that’s normal. I was aware that Liverpool wanted to sell me in the summer, which was a bit surprising to me,” he stated in a press conference.

Liverpool director of football Damian Comolli has rejected these claims however, and has another outlook on how the move came about.

“I think Raul said it himself with what I’ve seen recently in the press. Basically, he came to see me and said ‘I want to leave, I want to play for another club’,” the executive told the side’s official website.

“Our intention was not to sell him but we were put in a corner a little bit when he put in a transfer request and said he wanted to go and that he didn’t want to play for Liverpool anymore. I think the owners and Kenny (Dalglish) have said it, and we all have the same view. When someone doesn’t want to be here it’s difficult to say ‘you are going to stay’.

“We’ve been through that process in January with Fernando Torres and this felt like the same situation. We’ve done it, we think it was the right thing to do for the club, because it’s very, very difficult to have somebody here who doesn’t want to be here,” he concluded.

Meireles made his Blues debut in a 2-1 win over Sunderland on Saturday, creating one of the goals for Daniel Sturridge, and may prove to be an important man for the London outfit.

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Everton chairman Bill Kenwright has admitted that the Goodison Park club are losing up to £5 million a year due to the lack of investment, as the search for a new owner continues.

The Merseyside outfit have well documented financial constraints, which limited David Moyes from spending money in the recent transfer window, and forced the £10 million sale of Mikel Arteta to Arsenal.

That said, Kenwright believes that The Toffees fans would rather have him in charge than see the club succumb to huge debt.

“Maybe there’s a downside to having a chairman who is a football fan. We lose £4-5 million a year; that’s a lot of money, that’s a player to David Moyes,” he told BBC Sport.

“I think Evertonians would rather stay with me, with all my drawbacks, if they knew that a potential new owner would saddle the club with debt.”

Kenwright has not hid the fact that Everton need a new owner, but has stated that the club’s finances are stable until that happens.

“Our history is second to none, but until I find the right man, and I will find him, you’re better off with me.

“You don’t get an overdraft unless the bank thinks you can look after yourself, you don’t get millions of pounds unless they rate you. We have a very good relationship with our bankers, and there is a feeling of real respect from them for what we have done.

“It’s a fallacy to say that we have the sword of Damocles hanging over us,” he admitted.

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Everton fans have been frustrated with their team’s lack of transfer activity, especially given the spending at city rivals Liverpool.

By Gareth McKnight

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Tottenham’s latest move in the Olympic Stadium saga is a sign of the increasing bitterness of proceedings. They have demanded that West Ham can never remove the running track around the pitch. The reasoning is simple enough but not admirable. They believe that West Ham’s promise to keep the running track was a defining selling point of the Hammers bid and that, were they allowed to remove it, they would have a ground capable of competing with Tottenham’s proposed new stadium but at a vastly reduced cost.

Daniel Levy is a terrier and he will not let the Olympic Stadium bid go and rightly so. A man who stubbornly refuses to take a loss on David Bentley must barely be able to sleep at night at the thought of West Ham securing a £600 million stadium for £30 million. Despite Mayor Boris Johnson’s best attempts to placate Levy with an offer of £17 million to kick-start redevelopments in Tottenham, the Spurs chairman is not happy.

Whilst Levy’s latest demand is undeniably mean-spirited, it makes sense. Spurs have already spent £85 million on new stadium projects without touching a brick, and the bitterness at missing out on the Stratford site will only increase as the spending escalates.

For West Ham this latest demand must be painful. Although they have shown no intent to get rid of the track, it would vastly improve their stadium. At times people will be over 200 metres away from the action and the atmosphere will certainly suffer as a result. Of course, right now, West Ham understand that their pledges to protect the Olympic legacy were instrumental in the success of their bid and would not jeopardise proceedings so early on but there must be long term desires to dig it up and bring the game closer to the fans.

Levy has a point. If West Ham manage to find a loophole or Gold and Sullivan sell the club, complete with new publicly funded stadium, off to a billionaire (like Shinawatra did with Manchester City) at staggering personal profits then that running track may well disappear and everyone will have been taken for a ride. This would be a terrible exploitation of public funds and a massive two fingers up to the Olympic legacy.

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It is unlikely that Levy’s demands will be met but there is certainly no harm in safeguarding against some potential profiteering.

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As most football fans will know the scope of the Ballon d’Or, originally the award given to the European Footballer of the Year was extended last year to become the FIFA Ballon d’Or which is now awarded to the player considered by both FIFA and UEFA to be the best in the world.

The 2010 Ballon d’Or was awarded to Lionel Messi of Barcelona and Argentina, who had also won the final Ballon d’Or in 2009 and is again among the 23 players named this week in this year’s FIFA Ballon d’Or shortlist.

Eric Abidal (France), Sergio Aguero (Argentina), Karim Benzema (France), Iker Casillas (Spain), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Dani Alves (Brazil), Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Diego Forlan (Uruguay), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Thomas Muller (Germany), Nani (Portugal), Neymar (Brazil), Mesut Ozil (Germany), Gerard Pique (Spain), Wayne Rooney (England), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Netherlands), Luis Suarez (Uruguay), David Villa (Spain), Xabi Alonso (Spain), Xavi (Spain).

This list will be shortened to just three names on December 5th with the result being announced in Zurich on January 9th 2012.

Despite being regarded as the best league in the world, the Premier League has received only four nominations and one of them is the recent arrival to the league at Manchester City, Sergio Aguero. The other three are Wayne Rooney and Nani, both of Manchester United and Luis Suarez of Liverpool. In fact, Rooney is the only English player among the 23!

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Needless to say, the nominations have a huge bias towards attacking players, with only two defenders, Eric Abidal and Danny Alvez and one goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, making the shortlist.

It was three players from FC Barcelona who occupied the top three 12 months ago, with Messi winning ahead of teammates Andres Iniesta and Xabi Hernandez and many believe that the same outcome could easily occur again this year after Barcelona once again dominated European football and unlike 2010, the nominated players from the Catalan club can now boast a Champions League winners medal to the case for winning the award which has been around since 1956. In fact, it would be a major surprise should Messi not win for a third consecutive year and bookmakers are offering odds of just 1/7 that he wins again.

Also awarded on the night is the award for FIFA Coach of the Year and on that shortlist are three Premier League nominees, but one of those, Andre Villas-Boas, has been nominated for his performance in winning the Europa League last season with FC Porto before he made his move to Chelsea. The others are Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United and Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger, although quite why Wenger has found himself on the shortlist after a trophy less six years at the Emirates is a mystery.

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The Coach award looks set to be a straight battle between Spain’s National Team Manager, Vincente Del Bosque and Pep Guardiola, Head Coach of FC Barcelona with only Oscar Tabarez, Head Coach of Uruguay, a possibility to upset the Spanish duo after his superb job in guiding his country to an unexpected victory in the Copa America.

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Why did he do it?

That is the question that remains in the mind of family, friends, colleagues and supporters alike, and is one that is likely to remain unanswered with regards to the death of Gary Speed. His passing is nothing short of a tragedy and has rocked the game to the very core.

I have to say I was taken aback by the news and like the majority failed to comprehend how a man, who from the outset seemingly had everything at his feet and as national team manager was at the pinnacle of his sport, found himself in such a dark place that he had little option but to end it all there and then. I am sure I wasn’t the only one that found it even more chilling that he seemed so full of energy and spirit on Football Focus a few hours previous. This wasn’t seemingly a man who visibly had demons eating him up inside, but I guess how would anyone of known.

Stan Collymore highlighted on twitter last Friday his battle against depression and how it hits you like a train at times and you are left not knowing which way to turn to. Let’s be honest most people fail to recognise the severity of depression or insecurities and to many it is derided as an illness, mainly down to our ignorance towards the disease. Full credit to Collymore for making people aware its consequences and calling on those sufferers to be open about it, and talk to doctors and friends. I guess herein lies the tragedy with Speed that he didn’t have the ability to tell those loved ones of his issues and I’m sure all his friends will be equally upset that he didn’t confide. Whether Speed did in fact suffer from depression remains to be seen; but the fact he couldn’t open up about the issues that led to his untimely death highlights a man who would rather suffer in silence than pass on his problems to anyone else. So many people will be left ruing the fact he didn’t and they will have that feeling inside for the rest of their lives.

I know it is somewhat clichéd that when tragedy strikes you evaluate and take stock of your own situation, but it certainly put life into perspective. It got me thinking of all the things that anger me in football like your players who are happy to go on strike; the parasite agents who milk their clients dry, or the workings of FIFA and I find my blood boiling even more. Gary Speed was the model professional, a fabulous ambassador for the Sport who gave everything to the game we all love – basically ten times the man of any of the above – and yet a real football man is taken from us, while the self-centred sods happily go about their business. It doesn’t seem fair and it doesn’t seem right, but it just further highlights the enormity of this tragedy.

The inquest to Speed’s death opens today and I hope that his family and friends get some answers to their questions over their tragic loss. I hope the powers that be look into the psychological side of football and ensure clubs educate their footballers of a variety of issues, including the perils of depression as Collymore alluded to. Lastly I hope that Gary Speed finally finds himself at peace with himself after leaving a world, in which judging by the heartfelt tributes he was clearly adored.

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RIP Gary.

It was the first time I’d been in the home dressing room at Chelsea for half a century. In fact, I hadn’t visited Stamford Bridge at all since Roman Abramovich took over. Many ex-players love going back to the scenes of former glories, and each to their own, but Boris Becker summed it up for me while talking wistfully about Centre Court at Wimbledon, as he watched Pete Sampras heading towards another title. “This place used to be all mine but it’s his court now – it all belongs to Pete.”

That’s why I rarely return either to the Bridge or White Hart Lane. When you used to be the main man, the king of the hill, it feels discomforting to turn up and watch someone else in your place. It was my 11-year-old grandson Harry who brought me back to the Bridge. He’s the only one of my 10 grandchildren who supports Chelsea. My missus Irene, who has supported the Blues since I was a kid there, made damned sure of it by sticking a plaque on his bedroom wall saying: ‘A Chelsea fan sleeps here.’

So for the Boxing Day derby against Fulham, I went along with my son Andy and Harry, and the club invited us on to the pitch at half-time as well as arranging for Harry to meet his hero Didier Drogba, post-match. Given the disappointing 1-1 scoreline, I didn’t expect to be ushered into the dressing room – approximately twice the size it was in my own playing days – but there we found ourselves, in the inner sanctum.

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Harry enjoyed a good chat with Drogba, John Terry gave him his shirt and I had a chat with Frank Lampard, whose dad used to be my West Ham team-mate. Sticking my head around the corner to the treatment area I spotted Ashley Cole having a massage. “A massage?” I asked him, “What’s that all about?” “Someone trod on my foot,” said Ashley. “I suppose in your day you’d be having a beer and a fag by now?” “Too bloody right,” I told him. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing if we went back to those days,” he said. “I don’t think, so, Ash, the money wasn’t quite the same!”

He could hardly disagree with that one, given his infamous comments about negotiating a contract with Arsenal, but when you meet Cole you get the distinct impression that his public image is all wrong. There was a bit of speculation in the press about whether I’d offered Fernando Torres any advice. We did meet and say hello but the last thing he’d have wanted was some fat old bloke telling him how many goals he had scored for the club.It was interesting to watch Torres from up in an executive box in the West Stand, which used to be the vast West Terrace, one of the biggest standing areas in football, and a place I was unfortunate enough to have to sweep as an apprentice.

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The most remarkable thing for me was how incredibly supportive the Chelsea fans were towards him. For a £50million striker, who has only scored three goals in a year, to be backed to the hilt, without a murmur of criticism, is a great credit to those supporters and a real blessing for Torres. The Spaniard actually put in a decent all-round team performance but his lack of confidence was all too apparent.

Alan Shearer was right when he said Torres is spending too much time with his back to goal, and that Andre Villas-Boas needs to be seeing the No.9 on his shirt more often. But a goal drought is an awful thing for any striker. It eats away at you and Villas-Boas needs to give Torres more support – I’d love to have seen him play up front with Drogba more often.

I don’t buy into the opinion that they cannot operate together. They are two top players, they aren’t particularly similar and it’s the manager’s job to find a way of accommodating both. In the meantime, though, Torres will be on his own up front, with Drogba away at the African Cup of Nations. It ain’t going to be easy, but I know one little 11-year-old who would be delighted to see Torres succeed.

There is no getting away from the fact that the return of Paul Scholes will be a major talking point for a long time to come. Some people focus on the sentimentality for it, some on the fact that United are apparently in crisis and this is why the player has chosen to return. Others have asked the question of exactly why he has returned, and if the reason behind this is due to the fact United have no money to spend and the Glazers have literally given Fergie nothing when he needs it most.

How far this statement is true remains to be seen – it was the player himself who asked to return several months ago – or so we are told by the club, and Fergie duly agreed. United would paint this as a fantastic thing that gives the squad a boost and provides another option for them not to mention an experienced head during a difficult time.

Yet despite all this, the fact remains, United are lacking in a few areas, with the midfield being the most evident of these. Fans, media and even the creatures who live under a rock have been saying for a while now that United are in need of a defensive midfielder and also an attacking one, therefore whilst there may be disagreements of exactly meets the criteria, there is no argument that they have to buy someone.

After being run rings around in the Champions League final, most people thought Fergie would buy and restructure in the summer, and he did so to an extent, spending a fair bit of money, yet did not buy anyone for the centre of the park who can be generally considered world class.

Cue the start of the season and the rise by City, not to mention a few games where United have looked ordinary, and an early exit from Europe – sorry Europe’s premier competition – to boot.

With the January transfer window now open people thought Fergie would buy, yet all he has added to the squad is Scholes. Yes Fergie is not one for panic buying in January, and it is hard to get clubs to sell their top players, but everyone has a price, and a marquee signing for the centre of the park is exactly what United need, yet are clearly not going to get.

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The most obvious explanation for this is the fact that Fergie has been given no money to spend by the Glazers who have caused such passionate opposition since their takeover at the club, or even if he has, the club could simply not afford the subsequent wages that such players would then demand, with current players wanting a raise to be on a par etc, and a vicious circle commences.

More to the point however, exactly where has the £80 million from the sale of Ronaldo gone? Everyone is well aware of the intrest repayments the owners have to pay on the club, and it is more than possible that a portion of the money from the winger’s sale has gone towards helping this.

It would be easy to point the finger at the owners, and with the way fans feel about them, they would always be a scapegoat for problems at the club, and the fact remains United will simply have to buy at least two world class players if they want to compete firstly domestically with City who will just get stronger and stronger, and also on a European level, with the big two in Spain miles ahead of United, not to mention the resurgence of AC Milan and Bayern Munich.

The problem however, is that they do not seem to have the money to do this, and bringing Scholes out of retirement is certainly not going to help – in fact it just throws a harsher light on the problems at the club.

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It promises to be very much a ‘Super Sunday’ today as Manchester face-off against North London.  Rafa van der  Vaart believes it is make or break for Tottenham today in their pursuit of the title as he believes defeat will see them out of the race for this season.  Both managers have been playing mind games ahead of the game in the Etihad, with Redknapp in particular doing his level best to deflect all the attention away from his own side.

At the Emirates it is a game of equal significance with both sides desperate for maximum points. Arsenal will be looking to take advantage of Chelsea’s draw at Carrow Rd and close the gap on the top four of the Premier League. United likewise need to keep the pressure on City at the top of the table and have the extra bonus of knowing the result at the Etihad Stadium before taking to the field in North London in today’s late kick-off.

Kenny Dalglish believes Liverpool was taught a valuable lesson after their defeat at the Reebok Stadium. King Kenny feels his player’s performance was unacceptable and not befitting of the football club – Guardian

Rafa van der Vaart believes it is win or bust at the Etihad Stadium, if Tottenham want to claim the title this season. Defeat will see the North Londoners fall 8pts behind City in the table; a difference that the Dutchman sees as too big to reverse -Guardian

Andre Villas-Boas believes with a little bit more luck Fernando Torres will end the barren spell he is having. The Portuguese boss suggests that why the Chelsea forward hasn’t scored in 15 games; he is still finding himself and getting in goal scoring positions, therefore the goals will eventually come – Daily Telegraph

Ian Holloway believes that the big clubs spending big money on youngsters in daft and he fears for the young players’ long-term development – Independent

Sir Alex Ferguson will not strip Wayne Rooney of his penalty duties, because he fears it will create another bust-up between the two. The England striker has missed a few spot kicks of late, but Fergie will continue to let him take the responsibility – Daily Mail

Emmanuel Frimpong will require further tests on his eye injury picked up at Molineux yesterday. The on-loan Arsenal ace got an accidental boot in the eye from Villa’s Petrov that has caused a huge amount of swelling around his eye. It is too early to see the extent of the injury and Frimpong said it will be looked at again in a couple of days – Daily Mail

Liverpool are determined to beat Chelsea in the pursuit of Milos Krasic. The Reds are keen to take the Juventus playmaker on Loan, after the Serb has been deemed surplus to requirements under Conte – Mirror

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David Moyes fears another summer sale at Goodison Park, as the banks get tough over Everton’s finances – People

Harry Redknapp has targeted Swansea playmaker Joe Allen as a potential summer signing. The young Welshman has been an absolute sensation this season in the Welsh side’s first season in the Premier League and the 21-year old has been central to their progress – People

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Carlo Ancelotti has stated that the Italian Serie A is now on a par with the English Premier League, and stated that he feels AC Milan are better than Arsenal.

The Scudetto holders meet The Gunners at the San Siro on Wednesday night, and the former Chelsea manger has spoken of the upturn in performances of clubs from his homeland.

“You never have an easy game in Italy,” the Paris Saint-Germain coach told The Daily Telegraph.

“For me, this is a game that is a real 50-50. Let’s not forget that Napoli already knocked Manchester City out of the Champions League. Comparisons between the two leagues can only be made after these games.

“Italian football has made steps forward and the English game is not in great shape, what with Manchester City and Manchester United’s elimination.

“Napoli already achieved something remarkable by beating a City side that is dominating the Premier League, so I don’t see why they can’t repeat it. I think Milan are superior to Arsenal,” he concluded.

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By Gareth McKnight

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Tottenham attacker Rafael van der Vaart has stated that he wants to get to the FA Cup final, but that this Saturday’s clash with Bolton in the quarter-finals will not be an easy game.

The White Hart Lane faithful will be keen to see their side win after three defeats in a row, whilst the Netherlands international is returning to fitness after frustrating injuries of late.

Van der Vaart missed his country’s friendly at Wembley in February, but he is hopeful that he will get another chance to step out at the home of English football in the near future.

“Wembley is a special stadium and because I missed the friendly against England I’ve never played there,” Van der Vaart told the club’s official website.

“It’s always difficult in the FA Cup, but we will play at home against Bolton so we’ll be strong and we have a good chance of making the semi-finals and playing at Wembley.”

Spurs beat the Trotters 3-0 at home in the Premier League earlier in the season, but the talented playmaker is not taking progression in the competition for granted.

“It won’t make a difference on Saturday. It’s a separate game and we have to win, we don’t want a replay,” he concluded.

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By Gareth McKnight

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