| Holloway banned for confronting referee • One-match ban and £9,500 fine for Blackpool manager• Holloway will miss Sunday's visit of Manchester CityBlackpool's manager, Ian Holloway, has been given a one-match touchline ban and fined £9,500 for his language and behaviour towards match officials after the Premier League game against Blackburn on 25 September.Holloway admitted a Football Association charge of improper conduct after confronting the referee Mike Dean in the tunnel following the 2-1 defeat at Bloomfield Road.The manager was furious Brett Emerton's injury-time winner was allowed to stand despite a suspicion of offside and what he felt was a foul on Gary Taylor-Fletcher in the build-up.Holloway said after the match: "I thought the referee had a poor game and he is going to report me for what I said to him in the tunnel. I can't believe what he saw. I thought there were some unbelievably strange decisions out there. I waited for him in the tunnel. Never mind, I have got to learn and I should know better – but it is ridiculous."A regulatory commission heard the case, taking into consideration a previous incident on his disciplinary record – when he served a two-match touchline ban for improper conduct towards a match official at Blackpool's meeting with Ipswich in January. The ban will be served with immediate effect, meaning he misses this Sunday's visit of Manchester City.BlackpoolRefereesManchester Cityguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
England v Montenegro: Darren Bent primed to partner Wayne Rooney for Euro 2012 qualifier Darren Bent is the clear favourite to partner Wayne Rooney in a new-look England strike partnership for Tuesday's Euro 2012 qualifier. telegraph.co.uk |
Arsenal's pedigree can trump ambition Gunners' win at Manchester City shows experience still counts above an impetuous desire to succeedTantric football has been Arsenal's bag for six years now. While Arsène Wenger takes his followers to the edge, Manchester City want it to be over in a rush. On the weekend's evidence, patience is still winning. Deep knowledge of success still exerts its influence at the quarter-pole in this Premier League title race.Lodged in the consciousness of all upwardly mobile clubs is the realisation that Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United have won every English championship since 1995, when Blackburn Rovers broke the three-team cartel. The score since the Year Zero birth of every neo-liberal's favourite division is Big Three 17, Rest of the Premier League 1.City lost 3-0 at home to the Gunners, United endured another scare to win at Stoke and Chelsea beat Wolves 2-0 in a routine execution. To adapt Lothar Matthäus on the England-Germany dichotomy, football is a simple game: 20 teams run around for 38 games and the best three end up in the nicest chairs. Liverpool, who have finished second twice and third on five occasions, must be given a name-check here, especially as their 2-1 win over Blackburn featured the rarity of a Fernando Torres goal.Muscle memory has been exposed as a myth. By all accounts human tissue cannot record the information necessary to repeat an athletic feat, so Javier Hernández would be unwise to promise a rerun of the backward twisting header that put United ahead at Stoke. But in the league's three most successful clubs we see a talent for riding the undulations of form, for problem solving and self-renewal.The big names tend to make the correct choice more often than the wrong one. In a week when Sir Alex Ferguson span Wayne Rooney round so hard he ended up facing United, rather than City (his original intention), the Old Trafford talent-spotting department could back-slap itself over the scouting of Hernández in Mexico: not the most obvious hunting ground for an English club.At £6m, 'Chicharito' provided timely vindication for Ferguson's insistence that youth acquisition is a major part of the answer, even if there remains an obvious case for buying two A-class midfielders. Bastian Schweinsteiger and Wesley Sneijder, say.While Ferguson buffs his reputation for disaster-avoidance, a hard reading of Roberto Mancini's stewardship of City would say he slipped up by selecting a 19-year-old centre back (Dedryck Boyata) against Arsenal ahead of England's Joleon Lescott. Boyata is a fine prospect but he lives on the edge of the law, as he showed recently against Chelsea. His eagerness to engage Didier Drogba and others in hand-to-hand combat that day augured well but against Arsenal his over-eagerness left City playing with 10 men for 85 minutes.On such nuances managerial careers turn. Mancini is playing a high-stakes game by turning the sky blue Carrington into a boot camp and the only way he can keep hundreds of millions of pounds worth of talent on his side is by making all the right calls. Another Italian coach, Carlo Ancelotti, has mastered that art at Chelsea, displaying a politician's sense of how power works.The platform is now rammed with people waiting for the train of Arsenal's next trophy-winning phase to arrive, but you can see why Wenger exudes such confidence that the delay is nearly over. Stopping Cesc Fábregas leaving for Barcelona was a triumph to exceed Ferguson's coup with Rooney. In the final hours the Glazers had to smash the United wage structure to halt Rooney's defection across town but Wenger dealt mainly in promises. Fábregas knows the speech so well by now he could recite it to Wenger before the manager has opened his mouth.Arsenal have not held a major pot since the 2005 FA Cup but their resources are deeper than for many years at the attacking end of the side. With a fully-fit squad, Wenger could turn for creativity and goals to Fábregas, Andrey Arshavin, Jack Wilshere, Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott, Samir Nasri, Marouane Chamakh, Tomas Rosicky, Carlos Vela and Aaron Ramsey, eventually.The doubt, as ever, is whether Arsenal possess a sufficient number of warrior‑players who can drive them over the line, or too many like Rosicky, who can decorate but not decide a season-defining game. Chelsea employ proven winners in abundance and Ferguson is adamant the resolution of the Rooney saga will ignite United's form and allow him to make big-name signings from a stable base.These are daunting obstacles to City and Spurs. Those in the chase mature and strengthen but the big three are never standing targets. When they weaken they respond and recover. 'Give somebody else a go' is not in their vocabulary.ArsenalManchester CityManchester UnitedChelseaPaul Haywardguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson refuses to get carried away by victory over Blackburn Roy Hodgson admits his side need to follow up Blackburn win before they can start thinking season has clicked into gear. telegraph.co.uk |
Venkys Rule Out Spending Spree if They Buy Blackburn NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Indian poultry firm set to seal a 46 million pounds takeover of Blackburn Rovers ruled out any lavish spending sprees on the Premier League club on Wednesday. feeds.nytimes.com |