Sports Category
Sports news, commentary and scores with wit and added value. We compare and contrast the best and worst sports reporting in the mainstream press, blogs, TV and online. We love the English Premier League (Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Manchester United and Manchester City) and all things football but we cover cricket, rugby, the Olympics, tennis, golf, F1 and highlights of the sporting year.
Arsenal: Jack Wilshere v Mo Farah and Adnan Januzaj’s Manchester United contract
ARSENAL’S Jack Wilshere says only Englishmen should play for England:
“We have to remember what we are. We are English. We tackle hard, are tough on the pitch and are hard to beat. We have great characters. You think of Spain and you think technical but you think of England and you think they are brave and they tackle hard. We have to remember that. The only people who should play for England are English people. If I went to Spain and lived there for five years, I’m not going to play for Spain.”
That was triggered by the conversation that Manchester United’s teenager Adnan Januzaj could play for England if he passes Fifa’s five-year residency requirement. (He has to live in the Country for five years after turning 18. In five years, Adnan will no longer be the teenage tyro. He’d be mad to wait.)
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Posted: 9th, October 2013 | In: manchester united, Sports | Comment
Harry Redknapp says QPR’s wage bill was ludicrous when he joined – so he spent lots more money
MORE cracking wit and wisdom from QPR manager Harry Redknapp, who writes in his autobiography:
‘The squad I inherited in November last year was poorly balanced, undisciplined and short of confidence. The directors and owners were nice people but they were naive in football terms and I think certain people they had trusted – agents and advisers – had let them down quite badly. They had probably never been around players, or indeed football before, did not know the market and had spent unwisely on some very average foreign imports.
‘They had players on astronomical wages, being watched by crowds of 18,000 at Loftus Road. It wasn’t sustainable; it wasn’t right.”
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Posted: 9th, October 2013 | In: Sports | Comments (2)
Arsenal: Yohan Cabaye and that grudge against Newcastle United’s Joe Kinnear
THE word grudge has been used a few times in the last few weeks. First Alex Ferguson told us never to hold a grudge. Then Harry Redknapp told us he holds no grudge against the FA. Now Newcastle United’s Yohan Cabaye says he’s not bitter that his move to Arsenal never materialised.
Cabaye wanted the move, refusing to play for Newcastle in a bid to push through the £10million transfer. Says Cabaye:
“The only person who can explain what happened is Joe Kinnear. If he is honest, he will tell it. Otherwise it will not get out of my mouth. Was my failed transfer to Arsenal difficult to swallow? At first, yes. But you have to quickly get focused again, because if you go on thinking about it you have a grudge against a lot of people and that is useless. ‘I quickly forget about it and go back to work…. I bear no grudge against no one. I accept it, it is in the past.’
If he’s honest? Yep, that sound like a strike for harmony…”
FIFA 14 features Liverpool and Newcastle player in gay love scene
FIFA 14 is doing its bit for gay rights in football. Well, possibly not. After Andy Carroll, then of Newcastle United, kissing Arsenal’s Lukasz Fabianski in FIFA 12, this season’s title has upped the ante.
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Posted: 9th, October 2013 | In: Sports, Technology | Comment
Kevin Pietersen wins libel damages against Specsavers after they implied he was a cheat
ENGLAND batsman and general talented poser, Kevin Pietersen, has accepted a large but undisclosed amount of money for libel damages after a Specsavers advert implied he may have tampered with his bat during this summer’s Ashes series against Australia.
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Harry Redknapp says he has no grudge against nasty Spurs and those untrustworthy, clueless FA fools
COMPARE and contrast Harry Redknapp with these two extracts from his new book:
“Daniel Levy) was the first person to ring me up to wish me luck when I took over at QPR, and even on the night I left Tottenham, the car phone rang and it was Daniel. “Harry, let’s keep in touch,” he said. “I hope we can still be friends.” I thought, He’s got some front. He’s just sacked me and now he wants to be mates. But we have stayed in touch. I’m not one for grudges.”
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Posted: 8th, October 2013 | In: Sports, Spurs | Comments (2)
When Harry Redknapp used £30,000 of Arsenal legend Paul Merson’s cash as a box
HARRY Redknapp’s new book, “My Top, Top, T’riffic Autobiography”, is being serialised in the Daily Mail this week and today’s excerpt is a corker – containing the story of the day our compelling protagonist found himself with £30,000 of Paul Merson’s money hidden down his trouser leg for the entire duration of Portsmouth’s game against Millwall at the New Den back in March of 2003.
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Chelsea: Jose Mourinho bring his signature scent to the masses
SMELL that? Jose Mourinho does. The Chelsea manager says he can “smell” various phases of football matches including when a goal is about to be scored. Says Jose of Chelsea’s left-it-late win over Norwich City:
“During the game I am not nervous. I have feelings. I smell things, and when that easy (open) goal was missed (by Demba Ba), I had a smell that they would score a goal. We could have won or lost it at 1-1 because we, at that moment, didn’t want a point. We are trying to be top, so we tried to win it.”
Do you, like us, detect the grassy smell of GOAL!, the signature scent of the Premier League’s top strikers? As the ball hits the net, sensors are triggered that mist the stadium in the smell of fresh-minted bank notes, warm socks and champagne. The away fans get a waft of police horse manure and train carriage toilet. So much for goal line technology and trusting your eyes. It’s the smell that decides if the ball has gone in or not.
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Buckingham Palace hosts its first football match: photos
TODAY Buckingham Palace hosted a football match. The Duke of Cambridge and members of the Royal household were there to see Polytechnic FC take on the Civil Service FC. The Duke of Cambridge, president of the FA, helped organise the event, the first of its kind at Queen Elizabeth II’s London home, as part of the Football Association’s 150th anniversary celebrations.
The game ended in a draw: One-one-one-one-one etc…
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Posted: 7th, October 2013 | In: Royal Family, Sports | Comment
Real Madrid’s official complaint letter to Spurs about Bale’s transfer
HOW’s Gareth Bale getting on in Real Madrid after his move from Spurs? Sources point us to “Real Madrid’s official complaint letter to Tottenham about Bale’s transfer”:
Manchester United’s Adnan Januzaj to earn £140,000 a week
HAVIGN failed to settle on the number of countries Manchester United’s Adnan Januzaj is able to play for, the media are competing to see what he could earn in week if he opt to remains at Old Trafford. These stories are all from today’s press.
The Sun:
MANCHESTER UNITED are ready to offer teen sensation Adnan Januzaj a 2,900 per cent pay rise. he Belgian star, 18, earns just £1,000 a week but his current deal runs out next summer. So United will offer him a contract worth around £30,000 a week to stave off interest from other top clubs.
Manchester United offer Adnan Januzaj £50,000-per-week to ward off Manchester City and Juventus
Manchester United have offered Adnan Januzaj a staggering £60,000 a week to stay at Old Trafford after his match-winning display at the Stadium of Light.
Whoever’s right, it’s not too shabby for an 18-year-old…
Posted: 7th, October 2013 | In: manchester united, Sports | Comment
Jamie Redknapp on Shteeve McClaren: ‘In this age everyone wants a foreign accent in the dug-out’
JAMIE Redknapp might not be the sharpest tool in the box. He might have been giving the sideways eyes to that video of Shteeve when he said:
“In this age everyone wants a foreign accent in the dug-out, Steve McClaren deserves another chance.”
For those of you – including, perhaps, Jamie – not familiar with Steve’s foreign accent, here it is:
Spotter: Pies
Spurs: report says AVB gave West Ham no credit – but he did
FOLLOWING West Ham’s 3-0 win at Spurs, David Hytner wrote in the Guardian:
Sam Allardyce once speculated that he might be taken more seriously as a tactician and, therefore, considered for the very top jobs, if he had a European-sounding surname. At White Hart Lane on Sunday, the West Ham United manager contented himself with aping Spain’s 4-6-0 formation, which had triumphed at Euro 2012, to enjoy a memorable 3-0 win. He positively basked in the post-match acclaim. ‘No, no, don’t call me a managerial genius (but you can if you want)’, was the subtext to a line from his press conference. André Villas-Boas hated it. The Tottenham Hotspur manager gave Allardyce and West Ham absolutely no credit. He said that their goals had come from a set-piece, a fluke and a one-man break against two of his defenders. Allardyce’s tactics had emphatically not thrown him. “It’s nothing to do with the strategy but you can write whatever you want,” Villas-Boas huffed. Having been outwitted in the second-half by Chelsea’s José Mourinho the previous weekend, this was a low point. Allardyce is riding high.
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Posted: 7th, October 2013 | In: Sports, Spurs | Comments (2)
Harry Redknapp said the FA always make the right decision – and they didn’t choose him
COMPARE and contrast these Harry Redknapp quotes:
Talking about the FA on February 10, 2012. Spurs manager Redknapp is red-hot favourite to be the next England manager:
“They’ll make whatever decision they want to make and I’m sure it will be the right one.”
Talking about the FA in his autobiography on October 7, 2013. QPR manger Redknapp is no longer in the Premier League:
“I wouldn’t trust the FA to show me a good manager if their lives depended on it. How would they know? What clubs have they ever run? Who do they speak to who really knows the game? This isn’t about them giving the England job to me or Roy Hodgson, but English football being run by people who really haven’t got a clue. And they get to pick the England manager!”
Any regrets over choosing Hodgson at the FA, do you suppose?
Harry Redknapp newsflash: Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers is as English as Fabio Capello
HARRY Redknapp’s autobiography is high on the news cycle. In it, he comes across as bitter at not getting the England job he wanted and thought was his. He says that he’d have picked then Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers to be his number two. Rodgers must be gutted. Still he has to make do with managing Liverpool, one of the world’s great clubs, while Harry led QPR into the Championship.
Rodgers was, of course, born in Northern Ireland. He’s not English. He got his first break into management with Jose Mourinho (not English) at Chelsea. Chelsea managers Avram Grant and Luiz Felipe Scolari (both not English) kept Rodgers on.
So. He could be been on the England management staff, working for Redknapp.
Harry Redknapp believes English managers are as good as, if not better than, their foreign counterparts. The Tottenham manager has long been an advocate of giving homegrown coaches a chance to manage at the highest level in this country and feels that, given recent results, more should be appointed over “sexy names” from abroad. He even claims Ian Holloway’s success in leading Blackpool from the Championship to ninth in the Premier League would be beyond José Mourinho.
He lamented that “English people don’t have the money” to buy football clubs.
Redknapp told TalkSPORT back in 2010:
“I’m English, who wouldn’t want to manage England. There’s not an Englishman – whether it’s me, Roy Hodgson or Sam Allardyce – who would turn the job down because it’s our country and we want to manage our country. No one is ever going to turn that job down.”
He told the Sun in 2010:
“Should the England job only be for the English? I would back that.”
To recap: Brendan Rodgers is not English.
Harry Redknapp wanted Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers as his assistant England manager
HARRY Redknapp, the QPR manager once at Spurs has penned the book Always Managing: My Autobiography. You can read extracts in the Daily Mail. In it, he talks about the job of being England manager.
It’s fairly common knowledge that Redknapp was, outwardly at least, in the running to get the England job after Fabio Capello was ousted in early 2012 though, much to the chagrin of every single buddyish journalist on Fleet Street who had been lobbying in unison for months to get their man installed, ‘Arry was thankfully passed over and the top job was given to someone who wasn’t and isn’t a cartoon character.
This obviously still rankles with ‘Arry, who obviously believes that the national game must be in the wrong hands:
“I wouldn’t trust the FA to show me a good manager if their lives depended on it. How would they know? What clubs have they ever run? Who do they speak to who really knows the game? This isn’t about them giving the England job to me or Roy Hodgson, but English football being run by people who really haven’t got a clue. And they get to pick the England manager!”
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Arsenal: the best and worst Jack Wilshere puns
ARSENAL’S Jack Wilshere began the weekend smoking a cigarette. He ended it as the Gunners’ goal scorer in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw at West Bromwich Albion. The puns came thick and fast. But are they any good? Let’s look at the best and the worst.
The Times:
Arsenal huff and puff their way back to top
The Sun creates a horrible headline: “Ciggie Stardust” and his “scoring habit”. Dod you score cigarettes, like you do drugs?
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Surrey police threaten to arrest ‘annoying’ children playing sport in the street
“Playing football or other sports in the street is a criminal offence, particularly if someone is affected, such as being involved in an accident, or where the activity has caused them annoyance, alarm or distress.”
An Insp Hollingsworth then spoke:
“The main purpose of the flyer was to identify the concerns and emphasise the obvious dangers involved in playing in the road.”
“Please accept my apologies for the way in which the leaflet put this message across and for any offence it may have caused.”
Spurs: Police evict Tottenham fans for calling themselves Yids as West Ham fans respond with a little Hitler humour
DID the Chant Police arrest anyone at the Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United match? The BBC reported that one Spurs fan was arrested for saying “Yid” at the match. Yeah. First they came for the Yids who called themselves Yids…
This Spurs terror was held on suspicion of committing a public order offence.
The rest of the pubic around him sang song about Yids. They were not arrested.
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Posted: 6th, October 2013 | In: Sports, Spurs | Comments (4)
Manchester United: Adnan Januzaj wants to play for how many teams?
HOW many countries is Manchester United’s Adnan Januzaj, eligible to play for?
Sky News: Januzaj, who is of Kosovan descent, is eligible to play for several different countries already
Daily Mail – SIX
Daily Mail – FIVE
“The English FA have made their interest in Adnan known. I think he has a choice of three or four countries he can play for. Belgium have already tried to call him up, Albania and Croatia too. I think he would be able to play for England because of residency in five years.”
Such are the facts…
Spurs fans tweet an easy win over West Ham United and Arsenal fans say ‘get Wilshere off’
FOOTBALL is a funny old game. The pundits get their opinions picked apart on Match of the Day and in the newspapers because tipping the outcome of a match is no simple science. Arsenal Gent has noticed a few Spurs tweets before Tottenham lost 0-3 to West Ham United:
18/1 cant believe these odds 4-0 easy #COYS get 3 points n me some money YID ARMY
— DANNY THFC (@dannyspurs1882) October 6, 2013
I do actually think we will win 3/4 – 0 today.West Ham have no attacking players.If we win the CM battle then an easy win. #COYS #YIDARMY
— Tom Mather (@mather1986t) October 6, 2013
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Posted: 6th, October 2013 | In: Arsenal, Sports, Spurs | Comment
Arsenal v West Brom: Baggies only turn up to make Jack Wilshere shine
LOCAL news watch: West Bromwich Albion drew 1-1 with Arsenal. What did the clubs’ local papers say?
Anelka had cause to regret those misses when the Gunners snatched a 63rd-minute equaliser, with substitute Tomas Rosicky laying off Olivier Giroud’s cross for Wilshere to crack a half-volley that skimmed off the shin of Jonas Olsson and into the bottom corner.
Jack Wilshere’s effort found the back of the net after a big deflection off Jonas Olsson
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Manchester United: Moyes claims credit for Adnan Januzaj and says all Manchester City fans dream of playing for United
IS Manchester United’s 18-year-old legend -in-the-making Adnan Januzaj English? The Telegraph and Express lead with news that Roy Hodgson, the England manger, wants Adnan to play for the Three Lions.
The Mirror notes:
FIFA red tape means there would be a five-year wait, but the 18-year-old has several options having never been called up for Belgium
So. If the hotshot wants to play for mighty England he can wait until he’s 23. Think he will? The FA rules are that any player not born here must play continuously in England for five years from their 18th birthday. Adnan’s Manchester United contract expires at the season’s end. He might not even be he after that.
Young Adnan was born in Brussels, Belgium. He’s never represented them. So. He could play for England.
Says United manger David Moyes:
“The English FA have made their interest in Adnan known. I think he has a choice of three or four countries he can play for. Belgium have already tried to call him up, Albania and Croatia too. I think he would be able to play for England because of residency in five years.”
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Posted: 6th, October 2013 | In: manchester united, Sports | Comments (3)
