Newcastle’s win over Liverpool at St James’ Park on Saturday was all about three men: Andy Carroll, Joey Barton and Kevin Nolan. These three players were simply awesome and have been for most of the season, contributing to the vast majority of Newcastle’s goals and assists in the Premier League so far. They have fired Newcastle up to 8th in the table, but new manager Alan Pardew will be hoping that another Magpie can keep up his good form.
They often say that the stats don’t lie and if that’s the case then Jose Enrique should be highly commended for his performance against Liverpool and his form this season. In Picklive, the LIVE fantasy football phenomenon, Jose Enrique outscored Carroll, Barton and Nolan to emerge as Newcastle’s top scorer on Saturday. He has scored bucket loads of points all season as well, trailing just Nolan and Barton in the charts.
Numbers don’t always tell the full story but you can’t deny that Jose Enrique is going from strength to strength for Newcastle. There is never a question of the Spanish left back not playing, which tells you its own story, and Enrique matches up well against any winger in the Premiership. He’s strong, has a fair amount of pace and has pretty decent positioning, something he utilised by saving a shot on the line on Saturday.
Against Liverpool he completed 40 passes, made 22 interceptions and a couple of tackles, in addition to laying the ball off for Carroll to power in Newcastle’s third goal. This shows that Enrique has a good all-round game, and while there may be question marks around Newcastle’s defending in previous games, I don’t think many criticisms are aimed at Enrique. He’s certainly becoming a fans’ favourite and the Bull has put his early difficulties in English football well and truly behind him.
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Carroll, Barton and Nolan may well be at the heart of Newcastle’s creativity and goal scoring, but Jose Enrique is also an essential player for the Toon. So if you fancy playing LIVE fantasy football then make use of your FREE Picklive trial now and remember, if Newcastle are playing then make sure that Jose Enrique is the first name on your team sheet as he’s sure to rack up the points for you!
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Usually, in the build up to a major football tournament, as a nation we like nothing better than to get behind our team. England shirts are in every sports shop, flags hang from houses and every England fan begins to believe that maybe, just maybe, this will be the year where they can finally end that 46-year trophy drought.
This time around, things seem a bit less encapsulating. England aren’t exactly expected to set the European Championships alight this summer. Some even doubt whether they’ll get through the group stages. It seems England fans are resigned to failure, and another wait for a chance at a major tournament.
So what can be done to spread a bit of optimism around the country? Well, what better than an awe-inspiring video that becomes a viral hit?! Arsenal and England legend Ian Wright has been trying to do his bit, with his ‘What if?’ advert for Absolute Radio. It can’t help but raise the question: what if England did manage to pull something out of the bag at Euro 2012?
The video reflects on famous moments in England’s past and illustrates the kind of perseverance England will need if they are to be successful in Poland and Ukraine this summer. Should we turn to Wrighty for inspiration in his quest to get everyone backing England again?
This video is sure to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and have you roaring for England!
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It’s that time of the year when a host of players will be switching clubs and a number of Premier League managers have begun their player recruitment drives in earnest. Young has completed his £17million move from Villa Park, Jordan Henderson has signed for Liverpool in a deal worth £20million and a number of others are likely to follow before the start of the 2011-2012 campaign.
It is inevitable that a number of transfers yet to transpire will raise eyebrows as agents scurry to get their clients the best deals possible. In the past, several players of insufficient quality have been signed for staggering fees which belie their true ability, and with this in mind, here is a list of the top ten most overrated footballers in the game at present…
Click on Kenwyne Jones to reveal my top 10
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John Terry should return to action at the weekend when Chelsea face Everton, according to boss Carlo Ancelotti.
The England international has been sidelined since suffering from a nerve problem in his leg after the victory against Fulham earlier this month.
It had been feared that Terry could be set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines, but Ancelotti has now said:"I hope John Terry will be back for next week.
"He will start to train on Tuesday and I hope everything is okay.
"Obviously we hope to recover John Terry. He is important to us he is a fantastic player, has personality and it is important we have him back for the next game.
"Alex will have the operation this week. He will go to Brazil for the surgery, maybe on Monday.
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"Frank Lampard we have to wait. He will start to train with us and next week will be an important week for him."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Middlesbrough managed to restore some of their credibility as play-off contenders on Saturday with a 1-0 win over Derby County. The result at Pride Park marked the end of a miserable run of nine games without a victory for Boro and gave a much-needed boost to our promotion ambitions.
Curtis Main made the three points ours with an unstoppable shot in the 80th minute after a perfect Barry Robson pass. The former Darlington striker has made a string of impressive appearances from the bench this season and the nineteen-year-old is definitely one to watch for the future. Jason Steele did his fair share of work at the other end of the pitch, keeping out a number of Derby goal-scoring threats to preserve our clean sheet. The final outcome of the match and the inclusion of Faris Haroun in the team, for the first time in eight games, was no coincidence at all. The last time the Belgian midfielder played was also the last time Boro won, on March 6 against Barnsley. The energy and work rate he offers has been missed recently and his return from a hamstring injury will stand us in good stead for the concluding three fixtures.
Boro have crept even closer to those coveted play-off spots with the win, thanks to results elsewhere going slightly in our favour. Promotion rivals Brighton were hit for six away to West Ham and Birmingham dropped points in a 2-2 draw with struggling Bristol City. The only real problem was Cardiff City winning again, keeping them two points adrift of us. It looks like it will be battle between the Bluebirds, Boro or Brighton for that final sixth play-off spot and you would think we are all in with a good shout.
Cardiff obviously hold all the cards at the moment but with tough home games against Derby and Leeds to contest, they could quite easily drop points. Brighton have slightly easier fixtures in the form of Watford and Barnsley, but a home clash with fourth-placed Birmingham next weekend will be crucial. Boro are quite lucky as they have recently relegated Doncaster Rovers to play at the Riverside on Tuesday night. Doncaster were doomed to League One on Saturday, following a remarkable game with fellow relegation candidates Portsmouth. The home side led 3-2 in the 90th minute but two goals in added time gave Pompey the win. Morale will be at an all time low for Donny and we need to capitalise on this, inflicting further pain to the Championship’s bottom club.
Our biggest test, arguably of the season, will be at the weekend when second-placed Southampton are the visitors. The Saints, who are aiming for the league title, well and truly turned us over at St Mary’s in October so if we somehow got a result then the boost for our morale and play-off chances would be huge.
In a league like ours, morale and team spirit are going to be the deciding factor during these final few fixtures. Brighton boss Gus Poyet will need to lift his side after their crushing 6-0 defeat whereas Cardiff are in great form and full of confidence, which is worrying. It was obvious that morale has been an issue at Boro, with the general consensus amongst club and fans alike being that our play-off hopes were almost over. The team were leaving the field after 90 minutes with their heads down, whilst giving a half-hearted acknowledgment to the fans for their continued excellent support, especially evident at Hull last week. This was a huge contrast on Saturday at Pride Park when Boro were full of life and must have felt like a promotion-pushing side again, which we will hopefully carry into Tuesday’s game.
Boro went on a run of four straight wins during the final games of last season, largely down to high morale under Tony Mowbray’s influence. We finished with a convincing 3-0 win over Tuesday’s visitors Doncaster on the final day of the season. It meant that Boro crept into the top half of the league on goal difference, having spent part of the season in the relegation places. This was a great end to a poor season.
Our just rewards for having a strong season this time round would be to repeat last season’s final fixture form. The difference this year being that we creep into the play-off positions, rather than just the top half. I’m unsure as to whether my nerves can take the stress and pressure that is bound to come over the next couple of weeks but it is going to be a thrilling climax, provided we fans have a little blind faith.
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With one win down there are just three to go. Pride is restored, morale is lifted and we are still in with a shout. Up the Boro.
Around 18 months ago, Wolverhampton Wanderers played a weakened team against Manchester United in a league match.
I was furious. Well, quite miffed anyway. I thought it disgraceful that they would throw in the towel for a football match, and thought it unfair on United’s competitors that they chose to do this once against United. It’s not as if a full-strength team couldn’t possibly have got a result at Old Trafford, however unlikely it may have been.
In the end, Wolves got a suspended fine. And since then, it not surprisingly happened again, and resulted in a £25,000 fine handed out to Blackpool for fielding a “weakened team” against Aston Villa in November – when they faced four games in 12 days (and narrowly lost 3-2). Ian Holloway threatened to resign if they were fined, but not surprisingly, didn’t.
The Premier League said this at the time: “In reaching a decision the Board took into account the team fielded by Blackpool in its match against West Ham United, and in subsequent league matches.”
It was slightly different with Wolves, as McCarthy had also spoken about how he saw no chance of getting a result – so was basically admitting that he had thrown the towel in (yet his fine was suspended!). Holloway on the other hand was adamant that he was simply using his 25-man squad as he saw fit, claiming that all teams have to submit squads, and that he should be allowed to use them.
What is clear is that both played weakened teams. The opinion a few journalists have put forward (and Holloway too) that a 25 man squad is there to be used and all players are equal is utter hogwash. Clearly any manager has a preferred 11, or close to it, and has other players there as back up and nothing more. If Holloway really thinks all of his squad to be equals he needs to explain why most of the team that faced Aston Villa that day have barely featured since.
Playing weakened teams in cup competitions is a different argument, and I wrote recently how I would have been disgusted as an Aston Villa fan at the weakened team Houllier put out against Manchester City as it was throwing away the chance of a trophy, and was deeply unfair for the fans that travelled down to watch their team limp to a 3-0 defeat. Likewise, the Wolves fans that travelled to Old Trafford that day may have preferred to have saved their money if they had know the team that was being put out.
This debate once more came to a head again at the weekend, when it was widely reported, and came to pass, that Manchester United would make wholesale changes to their team for the visit of Blackpool, with the impending Champions’ League Final in mind.
The Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, confirmed no action would be taken over United’s selection. “As far as weakened teams are concerned, the Premier League has only ever applied the rule twice when it’s been an extreme case and somebody has changed all 10 outfield players and then the week after gone back and changed the 10 back again. That’s not going to happen.”
So it seems you have to change your whole outfield team to get in trouble. Yet as I will mention below, the rule does not state that at all, merely that every team picked should be full strength.
All things considered, I think the theory of fining a club for playing a weakened team is fine. However, the practice of fining a team is different, and bordering on farcical. This is because it is a rule that is simply unworkable.
The controversy revolves around E20 – no, not the fictional nightclub in Eastenders, but the Premier League’s rule E20, which states “In every league match each participating club shall field a full-strength team”.
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A simple enough ruling, but in that one short sentence is a lorry-load of trouble.
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One of the problems with enforcing the rule is the double standards. If United or Arsenal or Chelsea etc dropped 10 players for a league match, they could still put out a team that stands a good chance of getting a result. The smaller teams cannot. And if the likes of United did that and won the game, it’s hard to fine them when they picked up the points anyway. In fact, it’s nigh on impossible. And yet if the Premier League wants the ruling to work then it must be applied consistently, and thus, in theory, the big teams should be fined too. But that can’t really happen can it? And thus the ruling becomes little more than a punishment for smaller teams for not having the squad depth of the big boys.
It should also be noted that it’s harder with the bigger teams to know what a weakened team is. Their squads are of course deeper, due to extra resources obviously, and due to fighting the season on more fronts they often rely less on a set starting eleven, but use the squad to fuller effect.The odd change or two would be commonplace week by week even with a fully-fit squad, so the lines are blurred on just how weakened a team would be when wholesale changes are suddenly made.
The Premier League has partly brought this on itself by implementing 25 man squads, thus giving the managers the excuse of simply utilising their resources. And you cannot blame the big teams for resting players when they have a big game coming up and if that particular league game isn’t as important to them. And you can’t really blame the smaller teams for utilising their more meagre resources and targeting some games more than others in their quest to reach that magical 40 point mark.
All of which leaves a huge mess that is difficult to sort out. The rule really can’t be left as it is, and perhaps it would be best to accept that teams will use their squad as they see fit, however much you may disagree with that, and let them get on with it.
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The only downside to an otherwise wonderful 4-0 Arsenal victory over Newcastle in Wednesday’s Carling Cup clash was that about 30 minutes into the game Arsenal fans had to watch their Left Back Kieran Gibbs hobble off the pitch sporting an injury. It’s been a tough year or so for the young Englishman. On the 24th November 2009, Gibbs broke a metatarsal in his right foot which saw him sidelined for the remainder of the season.
He featured frequently in pre-season this year, putting in a number of performances that led Wenger to announce that he expected Gibbs to make a number of starts over the course of the season. Whilst Clichy’s form withered and waned, Gibbs went from strength to strength and was slowly but surely becoming Wenger’s first choice Left Back.
Unfortunately, disaster struck Gibbs once more as he suffered a suspected break to a metatarsal in his left foot in extra time against Spurs in the Carling Cup. In a small change of fortune it was later discovered that no metatarsal was broken on this occasion and that Gibbs had only suffered severe bruising to his left foot. He made his return only a week later against FK Partisan.
All of which leads us to the ligament damage that Gibbs received against Newcastle. Thankfully the Arsenal website reports that the scan on Gibb’s foot was positive and that his “absence will be relatively short term”. In realistic terms I think we could see Gibbs back in 2-3 weeks time.
But Gibb’s case is a sad one. If not for injuries, it’s possible that he would right now be holding down the Left Back position at one of the biggest clubs in Europe. Thanks to his bad luck, each time he returns from injury he has to prove himself once more and stake another claim for the position.
The consistency of his injuries is a real worry. To develop as a young player you need as much game time as possible, yet in the last year or so, Gibbs has spent far more time on the treatment table than he has the football pitch. You only hope that he’s not another case like Robin van Persie, who has never really had an extended opportunity to show just how great a player he is thanks to a career blighted by injury.
Gibbs doesn’t come across as a frail or brittle player. Perhaps he’s just incredibly unlucky. As an important prospect for both Arsenal and England, there’ll be plenty of people out there hoping that his luck will change soon.
If you’re interested and want to hear more feel free to follow me on Twitter.
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Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba’s health has continued to improve, with his carers admitting that he can now get out of bed and has started to eat.
The former England under-21 star collapsed in an FA Cup clash with Tottenham, and was rushed to hospital after a heart attack.
However, Muamba is edging towards recovery and has made progress over the last couple of days.
“Fabrice Muamba remains in intensive care at The London Chest Hospital where his condition is serious but stable,” said a statement released by Barts and The London NHS Trust and Bolton Wanderers Football Club.
“He continues to make encouraging progress in his recovery.
“Over the weekend, he has been able to sit out of bed for a short time, watch television and has begun to eat.
“However, he will need to continue to be closely monitored by the medical team at The London Chest Hospital for some time.
“His family requests that he receive no more visitors for the moment, outside of immediate family and members of Bolton Wanderers Football Club,” it concluded.
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West Ham striker Demba Ba has denied being responsible for starting a brawl at the relegated club’s end-of-season gala awards on Monday night.It was suggested trouble began when Ba refused to sign an autograph for a fan at the function at Grosvenor House Hotel in London.
Police were called after tables were overturned, a vase smashed and chairs thrown, with security allegedly pursuing a group of fans as they fled the premises.
But the Senegal forward denied claims he had snubbed a supporter.
“I did sign the autograph,” Ba wrote on Twitter. “I never refuse to sign autograph to the fans.”
“He came to me saying he is tired to watch us play and was looking for confrontation.”
Co-owner David Sullivan later claimed that a drunken supporter had racially abused a player at the function.
“The whole incident has been blown out of all proportion,” Sullivan said. “It was one individual who had too much to drink, sadly a problem in British society.”
“A player was racially abused by the same drunken supporter, which is not acceptable. Sadly one drunken supporter let the club down.”
The incident came on the back of a 3-2 Premier League defeat to Wigan, which condemned West Ham to the Championship.
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The result led to the immediate sacking of manager Avram Grant ahead of the club hosting Sunderland in their final game of the season on Sunday.
The relegation brings to an end a dramatic few seasons in the top flight for the Hammers since their promotion for the 2005-06 campaign.
That season the club impressed with a mid-table finish under Alan Pardew and almost won the FA Cup final, eventually falling in a penalty shootout to Liverpool after a dramatic 3-3 draw.
Wigan boss Roberto Martinez hailed his maturing side after they overcame ten-man Sunderland 2-0 at the DW Stadium.
Goals from Jordi Gomez and Hugo Rodallega earned the improving Latics a second league victory of the season.
Wolves lost captain Karl Henry to a red card after a rash 11th-minute challenge on Gomez and Martinez was happy with the patience his players showed.
Earlier in the season they failed to overcome ten-man Sunderland in a 1-1 home draw.
"I was extremely proud of the players, how they found the solutions, how they learned from the last experience against Sunderland and we created many chances," said Martinez.
"The pleasing aspect was we limited Wolves to nothing. The maturity and responsibility of the players in a no-win situation was very, very good.
"It needed a bit of magic to open the scoring but you could see after the first goal it was going to be a lot easier."
Meanwhile, Martinez pulled no punches when he described Henry's X-rated tackle on Gomez as the worst he had seen during his time in management.
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"It wasn't just the first contact. Karl catches Jordi with his knee, he comes with real force and you fear the worst," he explained.
"I felt it was a broken leg. He was a very fortunate man."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email