Liverpulio vadovas Rafael Benitez džiaugiasi Glen`o Johnson`o forma, jo manymu, tai vienas geriausių žaidėjų Europos futbolo arenoje. Šį sezoną žaidėjas buvo nupirktas už 18 milijonų svarų sterlingų.

“Jis dar turi kur tobulėti, tačiau vertinant balansą tarp žaidėjo gebėjimo atakuoti ir gintis – jis vienas geriausių”, – teigia Liverpulio vadovas.

Manchester City captain Kolo Toure banished the club’s derby blues by scoring an extra-time winnerat Eastlands to take them into the fourth round of the Carling Cup with a 2-1 win over Fulham.

It was his first goal since he arrived from Arsenal in the summer and a welcome one at that.

City found it hard going against Fulham after losing in stoppage time against Manchester United on Sunday but Toure found the target in the 111th minute to take Mark Hughes’ men into the last 16.

The west Londoners opened the scoring with a wonder goal from Zoltan Gera, only for Gareth Barry to pull City level.

City had the majority of possession in regulation time but had to wait until nine minutes from time before Toure struck the winner.

Danny Welbeck struck the only goal of the game at Old Trafford as a youthful Manchester United side made light of Fabio’s early red card to edge past Wolves 1-0.

Fabio was given his marching orders on 29 minutes for a crude challenge on Michael Kightly and the visitors had their chances but United – for whom Michael Owen made his second start – held firm.

Everton were barely extended as they cruised into the fourth round with an emphatic 4-0 defeat of under-strength Hull.

The tie was effectively settled in the opening 24 minutes as the Toffees powered ahead at the KC Stadium with goals from Ayegbeni Yakubu, Jo and Dan Gosling.

David Moyes’ men, finding their form after a poor start to the season, then eased off but took their goal tally to 11 in three games as Leon Osman added a fourth after 57 minutes.

Chelsea midfielder Joe Cole returned from his long-term knee injury to help defeat QPR 1-0.

The 27-year-old, named by manager Carlo Ancelotti as skipper for the evening, was playing in his first match since January and set up Salomon Kalou’s winner at Stamford Bridge.

Peter Crouch made the most of only his third start of the season by claiming a clinical hat-trick to ease Tottenham into the last 16 of the Carling Cup with a 5-1 win at Preston.

Spurs boss Harry Redknapp made seven changes for the third-round tie and Crouch emerged as the prime beneficiary as his predatory strikes took his season tally to five.

He made the most of his recall in the 14th minute when he dispatched Gareth Bale’s deep cross with a fine volley and Jermain Defoe effectively put Preston to bed with a predatory header seven minutes before half-time.

With 13 minutes remaining, Crouch tapped home Aaron Lennon’s low cross to cap a fine night for Spurs, who were given several scares by Alan Irvine’s high-flying Coca-Cola Championship outfit.

Preston pulled a goal back in the 83rd minute through substitute Chris Brown, but Spurs substitute Robbie Keane added a fourth for Spurs with three minutes remaining and Crouch cheekily completed his hat-trick in injury time.

Gabriel Agbonlahor ensured Aston Villa avoided more Carling Cup humiliation with his third-minute goal sufficient to overcome Cardiff 1-0 at Villa Park.

Villa had crashed out of the competition to lower-league opposition in three of the previous four seasons.

But Agbonlahor continued his hot scoring streak after linking up with fellow striker John Carew to seal a spot in the fourth round.

Yesterday, friends, family and colleagues gathered at Durham Cathedral to pay their last respects to a sporting legend. Sir Bobby Robson died 31st July, aged 76 after losing his fifth battle against cancer. It was fitting that it took place in Durham, the heartland of Robson’s beloved North East where he grew up and close to Newcastle United where he enjoyed a successful managerial spell around 10 years ago. Sir Bobby was a football icon, playing for England in a successful playing career before managing some of the biggest clubs in the world including Barcelona and nurturing the talent of household names, such as Romario, Ronaldo and Alan Shearer. Robson was not only a footballer’s man but he was also a gentleman and a fair man.

Sir Bobby Robson (1933-2009)

Robson’s achievements in football included winning European trophies with Ipswich Town and taking England to the semi finals of Italia 90 and a posts width away from a place in the World Cup Final. He also won numerous competitions with Barcelona, PSV Eindhoven and Porto. He was an early mentor to one Jose Mourinho at Barcelona as well. But his efforts stretched beyond sport where he used his high profile status in his great efforts in raising money for cancer and the Cancer Trials Research Centre he helped set up at Newcastle’s Freeman hospital. Once he had to give up football coaching he set himself another stretching target, which was target of raising £1.5m for the new unit, and reached that sum in eight weeks. We need more Robson’s in the world.

In the summer when a great sporting man died, sport has been dragged through the mud yet again with scandal after scandal. The early summer saw 1980’s football hooliganism return in the shape of rioting Millwall and West Ham fans in a Carling Cup match at Upton Park. The pitch was invaded four times and outside the ground was a scene reminiscent of an evening out in downtown Baghdad. A great image for our bid to host the 2018 world cup and for onlookers seeing how we are preparing for the 2012 Olympics. Then just in the last week, Manchester City have been embroiled by disciplinary issues. Firstly Emmanuel Adebayor playing aginst his old club Arsenal put the boot in, quite literally.

Adebayor stamped on Robin Van Persie’s face and could have blinded him. I suspect Robson would have had a thing or two to say to Adebayor in the dressing room, which would have been a little firmer than Mark Hughes’ pathetic defense. Hughes said I looked him in the eyes and asked him if the did it on purpose? He said he didn’t and I believe him. Come on now Mark, is he really going to tell you he was trying to re arrange his face because he hated his ex-teamate?! Robson would most likely have apologised to the fans and put Adebayor on the transfer list. You only have to cast your mind back to what he thought of Craig Bellamy and Kieron Dyer fighting each other on the pitch when they were teammates. Robson’s eventual efforts to get Dyer out of the club led to a fans backlach against him, however, it was the right thing to do. Hughes and Adebyaor have let themselves and the fans down. Then in the Manchester derby just this weekend, a Manchesater United fan ran onto the pitch to celebrate a goal with the players (which he must have thought was allowed or have been blind drunk or both) and Carig Bellamy (him again) slapped the fan in the face.

But these issues of bad sporting etiquette extend beyond Robson’s realm of football. I wonder what Robson would have thought of Falvio Briatore’s diretive to Nelson Piquet to deliberately crash his Formula 1 multi million pound car into a wall so his teammate could win the race? Don’t forget that Briatore is also asscoiated with football in his capacity as a director at Queens Park Rangers. Not for long I suspect.

What Reanult did wasn’t just playing hard and doing everything you can to win. This is plain cheating. There is no two ways about it. And how do the FIA try to uphold sporting and fair play standards? By giving Renault a suspended two year ban. Yeah that’s a real deterrent. Great job.

And then there is the gentlemen’s game and a real man’s game that is Rugby Union. But what would Robson have made of Dean Richards instructions to wing Tom Williams during the Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster in April to fake a blood injury while he was in charge at Harelquins? Richards asked one of his players to bite down on a blood capsule so that he could leave the field and they could make a subsitution that would have otherwise not been allowed to get a kicker on in the final minutes of the game? Can’t imagine Robson would have thought much of that. Real blood injuries…fine…man up and get on with it if you can. I’m not sure Robson could have even fathomed what a calculated, deliberate fake blood injury could even be.

The point is that we need influential people like Robson at the top of the sporting game and with the ability to influence and uphold the standards to keep sport moving in the right direction. We need less Adebayors and Briatores and more Robsons. Sport shames itself week in week out across Football, Rugby, Formula 1 and even Tennis. But it is how people are punished and how sport learns from its mistakes as a community that we will move on from these issues. Overturning Eduardo’s ban for blatent diving because FIFA are scared of Arsenal’s mite in world football does not send the right messages to the grass roots of the game and it’s not the way to go. Sporting associations need to take more of a stand against violence, corruption and cheating in sport. It would be easy to stamp out (no Adebayor pun intended) all the issues mentioned above. Fine Renault £1 million and ban them from competing for a few races. Then see if one of their drivers ever miraculously drives into a wall again. Ban Adebayor and arrest him for assault and fine Manchester City an exhorbitant amount of money (they can afford it). Otherwise in fifty years time there will be no more memorial services to celebrate the lives of sporting legends and people like Sir Bobby Robson.

ワールドカップを来年に控えて、Domesticだけでも試合数が他の欧州よりも多いイングランド。早くもリーグ戦の第2節が行われました。
この度、私が観たのは、いまのところサンダランドvsチェルシーとリヴァプールvsストークの2試合です。
まずは、昨日放映されたサンダランド（1-3）チェルシーの勝手にレビュー。前節と同様まだコナレテいないチェルシーに、前半先制パンチを食らわせたサンダランドですが、時間が経つにつれ押し込まれて後半逆転されてしまいました。内容が良くないのに勝つのはさすが（ってのは前節も書きましたっけ？）。ただ、先制されても慌てずじっくり攻めていくところは、風格さえ感じます。懸念される高齢化さえうまくローテーション等で克服すれば、不気味なちーむですよね。アンチェロッティの腕の見せどころでしょう。この試合ではデコが精力的でした。FCバルセロナで輝いていた時からは、まだ遠い感じですが近年ケガがやや多いので、ケガなく過ごせれば、面白い存在になれると思いました。
次に、リヴァプール（4-0）ストークは、ホームチームが圧倒してました。昨シーズンは、ホーム・アウェイとも引き分けに終わっていただけに、ジェラード・カイト・ベナユンそして４分に先制点をあげたフェルナンド・トーレスと攻撃的な選手が守備でも機能して、前節敗戦の心配を少し吹き飛ばしてくれました。
最後に、プレミアリーグでは試合のなかった“台風の目”マンチェスター・シティはバルセロナにて、FCバルセロナが主催する「ガンペール杯」という親善みたいな試合を行っていました。試合は観ていないのですが、少し気になったので私見レポートをします。試合はマルティン・ペトロフのゴールでマンチェスター・シティが1-0の勝利。ペトロフ選手はかつてアトレティコ・マドリーに在籍していた時のリーグ戦でも、バルセロナ相手にキレキレのプレーで左サイドを支配して、アトレティコ・マドリー勝利の立役者の1人でした。その頃は、現在リヴァプールのF・トーレスも同じチームで活躍してましたっけ。２人ともバルセロナキラー？このペトロフがクリスチャーノ・ロナウド（またはカカ）にF・トーレスがベンゼマに置き換われば・・・。今年はリーガ・エスパニョーラ（スペインリーグ）からも目が離せません、
さて、ズラタン・イブラヒモビッチのバルセロナでのデビュー戦でしたのでバルセロナ的には、残念でした。でも、今週末のスーペル・コパ（前シーズンのリーグ王者と国王杯王者の対戦ですが、昨シーズンはどちらもバルセロナでしたので、国王杯準優勝のアスレティック・ビルバオと）で勝利（または引き分け）を収め、まずは今シーズン初タイトルを獲得してほしいものです。（T2）

So I’m not a Manchester United fan, I’m actually a Manchester City fan, but the uniforms they have coming up for the next year, I would be ashamed if I was a Manchester United fan. Look like some stupid power ranger or something.

=

It only gets worse with their shakesperian themed atire for away games.

Go City.

Hart of geld? That’s the question

Robinho protagonizou um dos maiores micos do ano. Fez beicinho, bateu o pé, disse que era impossível ser o melhor do mundo no Real Madri. Sim, aquele time de Ronaldo e Zidane. Falou que só voltaria a pedalar se jogasse nas terras da rainha, com uma certa camiseta azul. Os espanhóis, que bobos não são, mandaram-no para a velha ilha, mas para jogar com um azul mais claro.

Agora eu quero ver ele ser o melhor do mundo no Manchester City. Pelo menos o Noel Gallagher deve estar feliz. Esperem um disco bom do Oasis em breve, com a nova seleção de craques do time. Sim, além de Robinho, o craque das pedaladas, o time B de Manchester ainda tem Elano e Jô.

Que merda você fez, hein Robinho?

The former World Player of the Year has become a controversial figure at the Camp Nou, after suffering a dramatic fall from grace that has seen him banished from the first eleven, and the buck-toothed Brazilian seems destined to escape to either AC Milan or Manchester City in the summer.

Sports is cruel, 1 day u are on top n invincible. Then u take ur foot off the gas and enjoy your fame and endless endorsements and party like theres no tomorrow. During this time, somewhere in the world (best bet is argentina or brazil), some 16 year olds are surfing your videos on youtube (there should be internet in south america right? i mean its 2008), trying to be you and working hard everyday to be where u are. Next thing u know, ur waist line is increasing and everyone seems to be playing more aggressively when the ball is on your feet cos face it, they wanna take u down n feel what its like to be at the summit! Then u realize that the 19 year old kid that you have been mentoring for the past few years is sprinting faster than u during training, scoring more goals than u and he is the one that gets the standing ovation during the derby match with the club’s biggest rival. And when u think u are still the biggest name in your country, your fellow country mate scores the goal of the year in the rain with a left foot volley and lead his team to lift the cup in Europe, then goes on to be named the best player in the world. Now your time is over, the 17 year old wonder kid takes over your place in the team and you have to fake injuries to lie to the media and the world that u will come back stronger after your injuries. Waited n waited, u came back from your “injury” and still managed to be insignificant in games. There goes, as hard as it is to reach the top, its harder to maintain at the top.