| England happy with Millennium Stadium as FA of Wales count the cost of failure Qualifier likely to take place at the more familiar Millennium Stadium rather than Cardiff City Stadium in March 2011. telegraph.co.uk |
Germans, Dutch stay strong in Euro 2012 qualifiers Germany and the Netherlands continued strong starts to qualifying for the 2012 European Championship with victories Friday, while Italy's rebuilding continued with a disappointing draw. cbc.ca |
Liverpool 2 Blackburn Rovers 1: match report Liverpool's Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Fernando Torres scored for the home side while Jamie Carragher handed Blackburn brief hope. telegraph.co.uk |
Sydney FC coach 'made of Teflon' Robbie Slater describes Vitezslav Lavicka as the 'Teflon man' as the Sydney FC coach continues despite a winless 2010 record. foxsports.com.au |
Premier League chalkboard analysis Johnny Heitinga v Rafael van der Vaart, Newcastle's approach play, Nemanja Vidic's success in the air and West Brom's midfield dominanceJohnny Heitinga, a centre-back by trade, has often looked uncomfortable when deployed as a central midfielder by David Moyes, but had a good game in that position up against his Dutch team-mate Rafael van der Vaart at White Hart Lane on Saturday. The difference seemed to be because Heitinga had a specific player to track – against Manchester United's 4-1-4-1 last month he struggled with no direct opponent, but his marking of Van der Vaart (the playmaker in Tottenham Hotspur's 4-4-1-1) was essentially the job he is used to doing at centre-back, merely slightly higher up the pitch. His success here is reflected in his tackle completion rate (five from seven) but more tellingly from Van der Vaart's passing Chalkboard. Note how few successful passes are made from a central playmaking position (especially when compared to his equivalent Chalkboard against Aston Villa) and how many take place in his own half of the pitch. Indeed, it became clear that Heitinga's sole job was to prevent Van der Vaart from creating in the Everton half. He was removed soon after Tottenham brought on Roman Pavlyuchenko, and Harry Redknapp pushed Van der Vaart to the left of a 4-4-2. Heitinga therefore had no direct opponent, and was no longer needed. Moyes criticised Heitinga's lack of focus before this match, but will have been pleased by his performance here.Newcastle United fielded only one true winger against West Ham, with Jonas Gutiérrez charging up and down the left flank and Joey Barton in a narrow right-sided role. Newcastle primarily looked to play down the left with balls into Gutiérrez, as the above Chalkboard shows – overall, 29% of their passes took place down the left flank, compared to just 15% down the right. But despite this imbalance both Newcastle's goals came after Barton crosses from the right – perhaps West Ham were surprised by the change of approach. First, Barton's ball towards Andy Carroll rebounded to Kevin Nolan, who finished well, then the winner came when Carroll headed in a perfect Barton cross.Any centre-back travelling to the Britannia Stadium is in for a test of his aerial abilities. Stoke City's reliance on long balls, crosses and set pieces is well-documented, and since Kenwyne Jones had scored four goals in his previous six games – all from headers – Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic were set for a tough afternoon. Ferdinand had a mixed game, winning just two out of five challenges, but his replacement as Manchester United captain was superb, winning 10 of the 11 challenges he contested, including all 10 in the air. Vidic's record for the season now stands at 50 challenges won from 68.Mark Hughes was without his entire first-choice midfield for Fulham's trip to the Hawthorns on Saturday. Damien Duff, Dickson Etuhu, Danny Murphy and Simon Davies were all unavailable through injury, and their stand-ins were unable to cope with the physical challenge in the central midfield zone. The Chalkboard of West Brom's tackles shows an impressive completion statistic of 33 from 46 and in the area between the two penalty boxes the figure is an incredible 27 from 30.Michael Cox is the editor of zonalmarking.netChalkboardsTottenham HotspurEvertonNewcastle UnitedManchester UnitedStoke CityFulhamWest BromMichael Coxguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |