TOP 100 SOCCER SITES
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| AFW talks to Rukavystya in Berlin Australian Football Weekly was waiting by the phone for a certain Holger Osieck this week, but the call never came. foxsports.com.au |
QPR hark back to less predictable days The Premier League script is so predictable that the lesser teams cannot even contemplate breaking into the top sixAfter West Bromwich Albion had won at Arsenal last Saturday to rise to the dizzy height of fifth in the Premier League their manager was asked if he thought they could finish in the top half‑dozen. Roberto Di Matteo reacted as if the idea was too far-fetched to warrant a serious response. He was probably right yet if a side placed so high in September cannot realistically contemplate being there at the season's end then the situation is depressing indeed.In the Premier League plutocracy everyone knows his place. The usual clubs will contest the title and Champions League places while the promoted teams will be considered cannon fodder until they prove otherwise. A few of the others will seek the crumbs of a place in the Europa League but most will be content simply to stay out of the bottom three. If only someone could come up with a new script.Harking back to a time before the First Division clubs, motivated by the prospect of more money and greater voting power, broke away to form the Premier League 18 years ago can give a misleading impression. Those were not the good old days. In the modern game the quality of the football is better, the pitches are better, the stadiums are better and compared to the hooligan‑ridden 70s and 80s the spectators are better.Yet the plots were less predictable and more capable of unexpected twists. Already the new season is promising to tell a familiar tale. Chelsea and Manchester United will again decide the championship with aesthetic accompaniment from Arsenal, and maybe another tweet from Tottenham, while Manchester City continue to delve into their bottomless financial pit hoping to find a team rather than an assortment of expensive but disparate spare parts. The thought of anyone below the salt mounting a serious challenge for one of the places at high table is more bizarre than ever.Unless one of the plebs' ships comes home, as the SS Jack Walker did for Blackburn in the mid-90s, the general scene will remain unchanged. For many of those following football today it must be hard to imagine clubs such as Burnley and Ipswich Town, or even Derby County and Nottingham Forest, winning the league and competing in the European Cup. Yes, there will always be the occasional upset, such as Hull winning at Arsenal or Burnley beating Manchester United, but these will merely be passing oddities, not signs of unusual things to come. When Brian Clough's Forest won 4-0 at Old Trafford a week before Christmas in 1977 everyone realised that these were champions in the making, and so it proved.The sight of Queens Park Rangers striding away at the top of the Championship has stirred the memory cells. QPR had four seasons in the Premier League between 1992 and 1996, finishing sixth, ninth and eighth before they were relegated. With their present wealthy backing they might be just what the top division needs to break the monotony.In the mid-70s QPR were the most tactically advanced team in the country. Dave Sexton's squad included seven England players, among them Gerry Francis and John Hollins. There was no orthodox centre-forward, Don Masson and Francis provided the links between defence and attack, Dave Thomas and Don Givens the width and pace, and Stan Bowles the guile.Sexton's team all but won the championship in 1976. When QPR completed their fixtures they were top but Liverpool had a match in hand, away to Wolves, and were losing 1-0 until the last quarter-hour when goals from Kevin Keegan, John Toshack and Ray Kennedy took the title to Anfield.Di Matteo may find the idea of West Brom challenging down the finishing straight outlandish but nobody was laughing at the notion in 1978-79 when from November onwards Ron Atkinson's Albion were in the top three for all but one week and finished third behind Liverpool and Forest.There have always been eras when the league has been dominated by one or two clubs – Arsenal in the 30s, Wolves and Manchester United in the 50s, Liverpool in the 70s and 80s – but the lesser lights have been allowed to shine more brightly than they are permitted to do now. Within relatively recent memory Norwich and Swansea have each presented a plausible prima facie case for becoming champions. Today they and their like would be laughed out of court.QPRChampionshipPremier LeagueDavid Laceyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 West Ham United 1: match report Premier League basement battle ends all square at Molineux after Mark Noble's penalty salvages a point for the visitors. telegraph.co.uk |
Serbia to seek Euro 2012 replay against Italy Serbian soccer officials want a replay of the Euro 2012 qualifier against Italy. They also blame Italian organizers for failing to prevent the violence that caused the game to be called off. cbc.ca |
Aston Villa 0-0 Chelsea This was a better result than the one Chelsea achieved in this fixture last season, when they lost 2-1, and, given Manchester United's slip-up at home, they will have been happy enough to escape with a point. Had Didier Drogba been available they would probably have gone home with all three, for, while Aston Villa shaded the first half, the league leaders completely bossed the second, yet found Nicolas Anelka never quite capable of delivering a killer blow.Incredibly, Villa could have stolen a victory in stoppage time, when a mistake by the otherwise promising Josh McEachran allowed Nigel Reo-Coker to run free on Petr Cech, but no one at Villa Park was greatly surprised to see the midfielder shoot tamely."The only thing the game was missing was a goal," Gérard Houllier said. "Maybe we had better chances in the first half but we were under the cosh in the second. I must admit I was impressed by Chelsea's power and movement; we did well to live with them."When Houllier said beforehand that Emile Heskey reminded him of Drogba, he thought he might have his striker to back up his argument. The only similarity here was that neither was fit enough to take part. Drogba has a fever and Heskey hurt his back in training. That left John Carew to lead the Villa attack, with Ashley Young returned to the flank and Stephen Ireland playing in the hole, a switch that may have disappointed the England player but one that almost brought a goal inside three minutes.Ireland appeared to have done all the hard work when he smoothly accelerated on to Stewart Downing's cross from the right to shoot early past Cech, yet even as the crowd rose in celebration, the ball drifted the wrong side of the post. Carew had another good chance moments later when he had more time and space to beat Cech than he possibly wanted. He tried to place a shot but the goalkeeper got a hand to it.Chelsea came more into the game once Richard Dunne had been forced off with a gashed ankle after 13 minutes, though the half-hour mark arrived without Brad Friedel being extended, and in what looked as though it might be the visitors' first serious attempt on his goal Michael Essien's shot threatened the corner flag instead.Five minutes from the interval, Ireland was unlucky again at the opposite end of the pitch, when a terrific block from Branislav Ivanovic foiled his goal-bound shot. Ireland appealed half-heartedly for handball, though the defender had not only flung his body in the way of the shot, he had turned his back as well. By half-time, Villa had missed enough clear chances to wonder whether they might regret their profligacy later, though at least no one was pretending it would have been a different story with Heskey on the pitch.Chelsea stepped up the pace impressively from the start of the second half, with Florent Malouda in particular more involved. Villa were pinned in their own half, and Friedel had to come to the rescue when Anelka ran on to a 50-yard pass from Mikel John Obi. Even in his capacity as emergency forward, Yuri Zhirkov was having little trouble skipping past James Collins and Habib Beye, and from one of his invitations Anelka should have given Chelsea the lead on the hour, but found himself with his back to goal.Both teams hit the posts before the end, Ivanovic with a header and Young with a free-kick to which Ciaran Clark may have applied the faintest of touches, before Anelka found the crossbar when scoring looked easier.While a draw was just about fair, one side knows it can finish better. "It was a good result for us," said Carlo Ancelotti. "In the second half we deserved to win but Villa played a good game too. We lost here last season so I am happy. Five points above Manchester United is not a bad place to be at this stage of the season."THE FANS' PLAYER RATINGS AND VERDICT MARK RUTTER, Observer reader After five minutes Villa were well on top but that proved short‑lived. In the second half we were hanging on and very much on the defensive. But in terms of clearcut chances, in the end we were unlucky not to win, though shooting isn't Reo-Coker's strong point – I don't think even he thought he was going to score. We've got a noticeably different style already with the new manager so we're going to have to get used to it, as are the players. It's definitely more defensive than the gung-ho approach of the previous regime. "Careful football" would perhaps be the best description.The fan's player ratings Friedel 6; Beye 6, Collins 7, Dunne n/a (Clark 13 7), Warnock 7; Downing 6, Reo-Coker 7, Petrov 8, Young 7; Ireland 6 (Sidwell 84 n/a), Carew 7 (Delfouneso 74 6) TRIZIA FIORELLINO, ChelseaSupportersGroup.net It's two points dropped – it would've been nice to be seven points clear so it's a bit of a missed opportunity. I know we don't usually do well at Villa but there was no get-up-and-go in the team, none of the attacking in waves that I know we can do. Admittedly we were missing some key first-team players but Villa really weren't that great. They came out hard and fast initially but that only lasted about 10 minutes and it settled back into a game of chess. Both teams were determined not to lose, which made for a pretty dull game. Both teams ultimately cancelled each other out.The fan's player ratings Cech 8; Ferreira 8 (Bosingwa 75 6), Ivanovic 7, Terry 7, Cole 7; Ramires 7 (McEachran 75 8), Mikel 7, Essien 6; Kakuta 6 (Zhirkov ht 8), Anelka 7, Malouda 7To take part in the Fans' Verdict, email sport@observer.co.ukPremier LeagueAston VillaChelseaPaul Wilsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |