| Tevez rant shows City's ambition is here No champions go about their business serenely, so it is heartening for City that their captain cares about tacticsWere I a Manchester City supporter I think I would be quite encouraged by suggestions of a bust-up between Carlos Tevez and Roberto Mancini at half-time during the game against Newcastle United. For one thing Tevez did not storm off in a huff, jump into his car and drive home, or spend the rest of the afternoon looking disgruntled on the bench. He came out for the second half and City won.Moreover, they won by dint of an attacking substitution in Adam Johnson, which is believed to be what Tevez was moaning about, so having seen his manager first replace Yaya Touré with Emmanuel Adebayor and then send on Johnson for Gareth Barry, Tevez now knows he has an effective channel of communication and that Mancini is not afraid to make changes.It could be argued that starting a home game with three defensive-minded midfielders was taking caution a bit too far, considering Blackpool on the same day were profitably setting out their stall to attack Liverpool from the outset at Anfield, but Mancini may not be as inflexible as people think and could even be coming round to the view that football in England is played a little differently than in Italy.Be that as it may, the main reason City should take a relaxed view of tempers snapping in the dressing room is that it shows the club cares. Plenty of people maintain the only thing that matters to City's expensively assembled squad is the bottom line on the wage slip, but when members of a team are falling out among themselves at the same time as they are climbing to second in the Premier League it tells you that ambition has finally arrived at Eastlands. The real thing, not just the easy soundbite. The captain falling out with the manager over tactics should not be mistaken for just the latest bit of slapstick in the endless City comedy show, this is the development that shows how much has changed at the club.At considerable cost, City have imported a dressing room full of winners, and kicked out some of the whingers. Perhaps it is premature to refer to City players as winners when the trophy cupboard is still bare, yet little else in the past couple of seasons has suggested as strongly that what Mancini would call the winning mentality is taking root.In a revealing interview with Simon Hattenstone that can be found elsewhere on these pages, Ryan Giggs briefly touches on the incident when Sir Alex Ferguson kicked a football boot and hit David Beckham in the eye. He only briefly touches on it because Giggs clearly believes that what takes place in the sanctuary of the dressing room should remain in the sanctuary of the dressing room, yet even in so doing he gives the lie to the notion that winners and champions go serenely about their business."What you've got to realise is that footballers, and me in particular, have seen everything in the changing room," Giggs says. "Everything. I've seen the manager kicking off with the players, the players kicking off with him, players fighting each other, managers fighting, everything."Giggs has famously only played for one club in his professional career, only worked under one manager, so unless he has seen an awful lot of battling in his relatively infrequent outings with Wales he is talking about Manchester United here. He is making the fairly obvious point that the better and more ambitious the players a club brings together, the more they are likely to disagree about how best to achieve results. Champion players in any sport are not the ones who sit and listen to instructions then shrug if the gameplan goes awry. Champion players will normally be the ones questioning the instructions or saying "I told you so" when they go wrong.You still find people, even the odd manager, who imagine that once you have a squad full of high-achieving internationals to call upon, all you have to do is send the right XI out on to the pitch and everything will take care of itself. Management must be easy, it is sometimes said, when you get to the level of Ferguson or Arsène Wenger.Not so. When you have a dressing room full of proven winners, who know more than you possibly do about winning, every decision you make will be questioned, every subtle change examined sceptically, until you arrive at a situation where you are accepted as a winner too.Even then, Giggs seems to be suggesting, you cannot bank on an easy life. That's why one can only admire Carlo Ancelotti's achievement in taking over Chelsea and winning the Double in his first season in England. Granted he took over a strong squad, but the difficulty of walking into a strange dressing room and dealing with players in a new language in a different league should not be underestimated. Ancelotti even manages to look relaxed about it all, too, and that is impressive in its own way.Perhaps Ancelotti, like Guus Hiddink before him, simply has a knack for making management look easy, or perhaps both men were just fortunate to inherit the team structure and ethic put in place by José Mourinho. It could be said that Chelsea are too strong to go wrong, except that Luiz Felipe Scolari discovered otherwise.Certainly the only thing likely to distract Chelsea this season, now that Ancelotti's feet are firmly under the table, is devoting too much of their attention to trying to win the Champions League. They are still the team to beat in the league, though City, who have beaten them already, are beginning to look as if they could run them closer than United this season. Arsenal have perfected the art of standing still, and presumably await the departure of Cesc Fábregas or Wenger to start their decline in earnest, while Liverpool are going from bad to worse as only once-great teams can.What Liverpool fans would like to hear are City-type rumours of unrest, perhaps even unruliness, from the Anfield dressing room. Instead the club's plight is being agonisingly picked over by the endless list of Liverpool old boys with media platforms. That's the problem in a nutshell, really. People still care about Liverpool, but their champions are fighting in the papers and not on the pitch.Manchester CityCarlos TevezRoberto ManciniPaul Wilsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
England's managerial future: Steve McClaren's highs and lows Ups and downs of the man the FA want to replace Fabio Capello. telegraph.co.uk |
Napoli v Liverpool – live! • Hit F5 for updates or turn on autorefresh• Follow all tonight's live scores• Email scott.murray@guardian.co.uk30 min: Lavezzi has been Napoli's best player. He again finds space behind the full-back down their right, Paul Konchesky's wing, but skies a dreadful cross into the stand behind the goal.29 min: Skrtel is booked for clipping Lavezzi as the Napoli man skittered down the right. The free kick is wasted.28 min: Another brief spell of passing from Liverpool in the Napoli half. Shelvey, Spearing and Jovanovic all knock it around. Poulsen thankfully doesn't get involved. When Babel tries a shimmy down the left, the ball's lost. The whistling continues. If I had a third eardrum, that one would be in tatters too.27 min: Cavani tries to Alonso it over Reina from the halfway line. He's not that far away, the ball sailing a couple of feet over the crossbar, but Reina had it covered.26 min: Another corner for Napoli down the right. Shelvey is the man hacking clear at the near post. It's a one-man show for Liverpool this, so far. "If Roy Hodgson does indeed get the sack, how long will we have to wait for an Englishman to take over another top 10 club?" wonders Jacob Geiger. "Three years? Five? I am assuming of course that Blackburn would never let Sam Allardyce walk away, since he is the self-proclaimed finest manager in football."23 min: Shelvey looks like a player. With Napoli on the attack, Jovanovic robs the ball down the right and tears forward. Nobody keeps up with him, apart from Shelvey who manages to get right up on Napoli's last defender and demand a through-ball so he can break clear. But Jovanovic's pass is wayward and the move breaks down. A decent looking break, that, for a while at least.22 min: Another set piece from the left, this time with better delivery from Shelvey. Skrtel gets his head on the ball at the far post, but only the tippy-top of it, and the ball clips out of play.20 min: A free kick down the other end on the left wing. Liverpool pile into the box, but Shelvey overhits his delivery and the ball sails out of play. "Not that I particularly care about it but I would think that the obvious solution to Scott W's dilemma is to fire Roy and hire a manager that gets the best out of his best players, not his second-string," Simon Thomas. "Unless that is part of the grand plan – sell Torres and Hollywood, pocket the cash but still improve on last year's league position (although in front of an empty stadium)."19 min: Lavezzi cuts inside from the left, Maradonas past Spearing, and hoicks a shot over the bar from 25 yards. Napoli are beginning to look dangerous.17 min: Dossena tears down the left and delivers a deep cross that Konchesky has to head over on the right. From the corner, Maggio scuffs a shot from the penalty spot that's heading wide right, Cavani attempts to direct a header into the top left, and Lavezzi skews a shot into the air. Liverpool were all over the place at the back there.15 min: Babel goes dancing down the wing. Unfortunately for Liverpool he's going the wrong way. Konckesky eventually hacks clear with Maggio and Lavezzi zoning in.13 min: A further spell of passing in the middle of the park for Liverpool. A solid start from the young midfielders Shelvey and Spearing, without much having been achieved up front. "Another sign of positivity is hearing the words 'and Dossena loses possession' and no longer have to get annoyed about it," writes Ian Copestake.10 min: A peach of a pass by Jovanovic from a central position, down the inside-left channel to set Babel free in the area. Babel dozily miscontrols and nearly runs the ball out of play, the chance of a shot and the danger both evaporating. Gareth Bale would have buried that in the bottom right-hand corner.9 min: More possession for Liverpool in the centre of the park. Ach, the whistling. My other eardrum's gone now. A life of deafness stretches out ahead of me. Still, I can't hear Peter Drury any more, so swings and roundabouts.6 min: Liverpool are exposed down both wings. First the Napoli left, Dossena shanking a shot in the trademark style. (Napoli haven't scored three yet.) Then Konchesky makes a terrible ricket of a turn on the other wing, Cavani breaking clear down the right and delivering a dreadful cross.4 min: Now it's Napoli's turn to stroke it around awhile. Like their guests, the hosts go absolutely nowhere. "Your Six-Millionth Email About Roy Hodgson," is the subject heading of my second email about Roy Hodgson, from Scott W. "Just thought I'd test out a pub-honed theory regarding Roy Hodgson's Liverpool tenure on the bigger stage of the MBM. My theory is that Roy does better with these so-called 'depleted line-ups' than with his full complement of stars. A certain amount of fuss has been made regarding Roy's training schedules, a common line being that they are not sophisticated enough for such glittering personalities of the game as Daniel Agger, Dirk Kuyt, etc. But an alternative line suggests itself: what if the level of sacrifice and teamwork Hodgson demands is simply beyond Gerrard, Torres and co.? What if Agger, Gerrard and Torres are merely so many Jimmy Bullards, whereas Hodgson burned down barns at Fulham by ekeing the best out of the likes of Etuhu and Konchesky? What I'm saying is that, under Hodgson, Liverpool pose more of a threat with Ngog, Spearing and Kelly in their starting XI, than they do with Torres, Gerrard and Cole." England Internationals Who Are Not Quite As Good As They Think They Are in Not Listening Or Doing What They're Told shock? Who'd have thought?2 min: A bit of possession for Liverpool, who stroke it around awhile. Kelly curls a low cross into the area from the right, but there's no red shirt in the box. The whistling when Liverpool have the ball is so loud I'm an eardrum down already.And we're off! There's a rare old atmosphere at the Stadio San Paolo, as you'd imagine. Napoli, in their trademark powder-blue tops and white shorts, get the party started. "Does Ferguson have some compromising pictures of Roy?" wonders Phil Sawyer. "Or has he simply threatened to send Big Sam round if Roy doesn't accede to his every whim?" Send him round to do what? Bore him with Opta stats?A season's first! Some vaguely positive noises from Roy Hodgson. Would a defeat here be acceptable, he's asked by ITV. "Well you don't want to lose, but the fact is, playing three games in a week impacts upon the game at the weekend, and I had to prioritise. That's the one we need to win. But there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to trust these players." All fair enough. He also delivered some strident big talk regarding 19-year-old Shelvey's ability. "I've thrown him in at the deep end but I expect him to cope ... he can do some of the things Steven Gerrard does." Now all he needs to do is take a wild-eyed pop at Fergie later, maybe even pop round his house and ask him if he would like to have a fight, and most of his previous crimes will be forgiven.Kick off: 6pm.Referee: Thorsten Kinhofer (Germany).Liverpool, featuring Paul Konckesky: Reina, Kelly, Carragher, Skrtel, Konchesky, Jovanovic, Poulsen, Spearing, Babel, Shelvey, Ngog.Subs: Jones, Aurelio, Cole, Kyrgiakos, Maxi, Wilson, Eccleston.How Liverpool must wish for an Andrea Dossena now: De Sanctis, Campagnaro, Cannavaro, Aronica, Maggio, Pazienza, Gargano, Dossena, Hamsik, Lavezzi, Cavani.Subs: Iezzo, Grava, Dumitru, Zuniga, Yebda, Cribari, Sosa.Anyway, his reign's not over yet, despite what the jungle drums say, so here's his first chance of redemption after a bad week. It's hardly a must-win game - Liverpool already have four points in this group - but a good performance is a must, or Merseyside will surely self-combust. Even from a weakened team featuring Christian 0/6 Poulsen.He's not helping himself, though, is he. It's all well and good trying to suggest Liverpool's non-performance in last weekend's Merseyside derby was up there with their 5-0 win over Nottingham Forest in 1988 - that merely marks him down as another of those tiresome "technical" coaches who talk a good game and are "well-regarded" within it, an Andy Roxburgh without the tartan scarf. But the refusal to warn Manchester United off Fernando Torres was something else. Come on, Roy, your paying customers are the Liverpool fans. You've got to perform for them, not Alex Ferguson or the rest of the LMA. Say he's leaving over your dead body, even if you don't believe it. That's what the people want to hear. It's not rocket science.Welcome to coverage of Roy Hodgson's last game as Liverpool manager. If you believe the internet rumours, that is. I'm no wiser than you, really.Europa LeagueNapoliLiverpoolScott Murrayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Napoli v Liverpool: players behind manager Roy Hodgson, says Jamie Carragher Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher insists the players are fully behind Roy Hodgson despite poor start to campaign. telegraph.co.uk |
Russia Pull Out Of 2022 World Cup Bid MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia officially pulled out of the race to host the 2022 World Cup finals on Friday, with the aim of solely concentrating on their bid for 2018. feeds.nytimes.com |