The selectors are likely to pick only a 15-member squad on Aug 2 forIndia’s three-Test series against Sri Lanka later next month, keepinga slot vacant for Sachin Tendulkar, whose fitness will be known by Aug10.According to Indian Cricket Board sources, the five-member nationalselection committee headed by Chandu Borde has suggested picking a 15-member squad for the Test series to be played between August 14 andSept 2.In case, Tendulkar, nursing a hairline fracture to his right toe, wasunavailable even after Aug 10, when he is to go in for a second bonescan, a replacement would be named then, the sources said.The master blaster, who skipped the on-going triangular one-day seriesin Sri Lanka, is said to be feeling better now.However, the committee would discuss Tendulkar’s fitness with sportsmedicine expert Anant Joshi, before meeting in Mumbai to pick theteam, the sources said."If the star batsman is confirmed fit by Aug 2, Tendulkar wouldstraightaway be included for the tour. If not, the 16th slot would bekept vacant at least till Aug 10 and another player will be named incase he is ruled out for the tour," the sources said.According to the sources, three members of the team playing in theongoing tri-series – VVS Laxman, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra areunlikely to find a place in the Test team as they are suffering frominjuries.BCCI executive secretary Sharad Diwadkar had on Thursday said thatfour to five changes are likely from the team which is playing in theone-day series presently.
Tamil Nadu roared to a 203 run thumping of Goa on the final day oftheir South Zone Ranji Trophy tie at Margao today. Set 315 forvictory, the Goans crumbled in the face of a disciplined Tamil Naduattack led by skipper Sridharan Sriram and Rajat Bhatia. The visitorscollected eight points for their toils to go top of the table.Bhatia struck the early blows, removing wicketkeeper A Bhagwath andTamil Nadu exiles Satyajit Medappa and Tanvir Jabbar, to have Goareeling at 42/3. Sriram’s left arm spinners then mesmerised the middleorder, three wickets falling to him in the space of seven balls, allat the score of 68. The prize victim was rival captain Pravin Amre,bowled for 14.The remaining four wickets were grabbed by the four other bowlersused. Sriram’s fellow tweakers Balaji Rao and Kapoor snapped up oneapiece before Mahesh and Kumaran returned to polish off the tail.Kapoor’s return catch had accounted for opener V Kolambkar the mostobdurate Goan batsman who had grafted for 175 deliveries to compile48. The next highest was extras with 16, which included five byes whena Bhatia delivery struck the helmet behind the keeper. Goas’s effortwas terminated at 111 in the 70th over, Sriram’s unchanged spell of8-3-6-3 being the most attractive figures.
Ramires has put pen-to-paper on a new five-year contract at Chelsea, despite the controversy surrounding the club currently.
The Brazil international has been a key figure in the Blues’ midfield this season, and has extended his stay at Stamford Bridge until 2017.
Ramires has stated that he is happy with his new deal, and had no reluctance to sign a new contract.
“I am very happy with my new contract,” he told Chelsea’s official website.
“I am very happy with the support I have playing for this club so I want to say thank you to Chelsea.”
The South American battler made his 50th Premier League appearance for the club against West Brom at the weekend, and has been an influential figure at Stamford Bridge since joining from Benfica in 2010.
Meanwhile, The Daily Mail indicate that Hamburg are hot on the heels of Chelsea forward Romelu Lukaku, and want to sign the Belgian striker on loan.
The Bundesliga side have a good link with the Blues as former director of football Frank Arnesen directs transfer policy at the German club.
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It’s that time of the year when the seasons are winding down. On one end there are dreams being realised and at the other there are hearts broken. There is safety in avoiding the drop and euphoria at being counted amongst the collective ‘elite’ in next season’s competitions.
In the all-encompassing emotional rollercoaster that is World Football, it would not be complete without the transfer rumour mill doing its bit to pull at the heartstrings once more. Your favourite player is linked with a move away from the club after declaring his undying love and kissing the badge all season long; the manager is looking to spend the whole season’s budget on one player; the squad needs more depth; the squad needs more youth; the debt needs reducing; the sponsors are packing it in… It’s everywhere!
Speculation is always rife in the upper echelons of football royalty and as usual it’s chief amongst the ‘Big Four’ who will now be three, the ‘Big Two’ in Spain, Ze Germans, and even to some extent the French…everybody is getting in on the action. Closer to home though, this is the time we will hear a host of football star names linked with Chelsea Football Club and one such names that has made many appearances in recent weeks is that of Romelu Lukaku.
Who is this, you may ask, having NEVER heard of the kid until he was linked with the biggest names in European football. He is the 17 year old wunderkind from BELGIUM! If you are sensing a little bit of tongue-in-cheek there, you are not mistaken. Something about wunderkind and Belgium and Anderlecht that brings a wry smile, but let’s have a look at where this all comes from.
With a hefty price tag, the Belgian ‘sensation’ has been dubbed ‘The New Drogba’ and so having known the old Drogba over his career, particularly with the Blues it was easy to look at this youngster and make that comparison. So in digging a little deeper to see what the fuss was about I have to admit that, he is a little Drogba-esque to some extent. Actually, not little at all. At 6’3” the 17yr old is just as likely to take on the Klitschko brothers (yes, both of them).
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He looks more on the money to knock Pacquiao out in 6 rounds than Floyd Mayweather. His 6’3” frame is coupled with pace off the mark, being good in the air, leading the line as a lone striker, a not too shabby first touch and after a quick turn he can rifle those shots in with some aplomb. So far so good, pretty much like the old or should I say CURRENT Drogba. We’ll tick that box.
So here’s this 17yr old with less than a handful of international caps being touted as someone to lead the line in years to come. In as much as there has been some positive talks about him coming out of Belgium, it’s exactly that isn’t it: Belgium. And that already leaves me with room for doubt.
Too long have a litany of ‘star’ players come from leagues where they have shone and as soon as they leave for the British shores they falter considerably, like Adrian Mutu, Helder Postiga, Massimo Taibi (ha ha ha), Claudio Pizzarro and Tomas Brolin to name a few. There’s no guarantee that strikers and midfielders who come from higher reputation leagues will cut it in the Premiership, and many such have failed, and surely coming from a ‘lesser’ league and at that age there is reason to question his signing at that price.
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The similarities can be drawn to one young Brazilian whose name has been bandied with Stamford Bridge, and that is Neymar. Like him, Lukaku’s people have been blowing hot and cold on his transfer to London, and it begs the question of the seriousness of this whole debacle.
Will Anderlecht look to cash in on a striker who will not get much better than he already is by staying, and with the names that are in the hat does it justify the inflated price? Or like Drogba, will this youngster prove to be the beast that he is mentioned currently, and bring fear to Premier League defenders like he does in Belgium? Richard Dunne beware!
If it is going to happen, it will be a while yet. Stamford Bridge always has been, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, Chelsea’s home. Since the arrival of Roman Abramovich, there has been constant mutterings of potential moves away, but nothing as yet has materialised. Because of the financial shortcomings of the relatively small capacity, there is added impetus on generating revenue through commercial interests, but the question remains over how long this can be sustained.
Chelsea manage to sell out Stamford Bridge on a regular basis, but at just over 41,000, the club are significantly behind their rivals in terms of attendance figures. They are in fact sixth; behind Man United, Arsenal, Man City, Newcastle and Liverpool in terms of average attendance, and those regular gate receipts over the course of a season, and the course of a number of years, will add up.
Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck made a public statement saying:
“The club has been here since 1905 and so it’s very difficult for us to make the philosophical decision that we are going to move on. Certainly we wouldn’t leave West London or thereabouts and there are very few sites available.
“We have to do things with our other commercial activities to make up the deficit that is created by the fact we don’t have a 60,000 seat stadium.
“I can’t say that we will never move or have a new stadium but at the moment, it’s not at the front of our agenda.”
In an ideal world, the club would consistently add to what they already have, in the way that Old Trafford has grown during its respective history. There was a period in the 90s where it felt United increased their capacity every other week; Old Trafford is now a juggernaut of a stadium. Stamford Bridge however faces its own restrictions.
In inner London, with nearby rail links, space is at an absolute premium. Adding 15,000 seats is simply not an option, not to mention the problems the increase in numbers would have on the surrounding area on match day.
I personally don’t have a problem with my team moving to a new location. There has already been reassurance that it would be relatively close (Earls Court, Battersea, Chelsea Barracks have all been mentioned), and clubs have shown that stadium moves can work. Making a new stadium a home is an exciting prospect. There is great tradition at Stamford Bridge, and the club have never known another home, but there would be an opportunity to start a new chapter in the club’s history.
There have also been murmurings that should if the club leave the Bridge they would have to relinquish the name ‘Chelsea Football Club’, but I don’t believe this would be an actual problem and would almost certainly be avoided. The club are in the transition of becoming financially independent, not having to rely on Abramovich’s pockets, but eventually will have to succumb to making a definitive decision regarding an increase in attendances.
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Arsenal, Man City and a whole host of clubs across the country, at all levels of the game, have shown how seamless moving to a new home can be. As one of the biggest clubs in the continent, the club will have to eventually change their policy. It is not a problem at the moment, but it is not helping either. It may benefit the club, to continue to research and develop their options, rather than put it all in the back of their minds.
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Not since 1995 have England not had a representative in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, and with Chelsea and Arsenal both on the verge of being knocked out by Italian opposition, and the two Manchester sides failing to come through the group stages, it seems the year of 1995 will be repeated. Is English football losing its self proclaimed title of the ‘world’s greatest’ league?
In recent years, the Premier League has dominated the Champions League latter stages, from 2007-2009, three of the four semi-finalists were English based clubs, while Manchester United have reached three of the four previous finals, winning one (against Chelsea in 2008).
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Despite this, English teams have made up only two of the winners in the past 10 years, (Liverpool in 2005 and Manchester United in 2008), this is less than Italy who have three (AC Milan 2003 and 2007 and Inter Milan in 2010), and Spain who lead the way with four (Real Madrid in 2002 and Barcelona in 2006, 2009 and 2011).
The Premier League is always billed as the greatest league in the world, mainly because it’s not as slow as Italian football, it’s not a two horse race like Spanish football and more people around the world are interested in the Premier League.
All of these are true, but does that make the Premier League the best? Certainly it’s the richest, but the counter-attacking football played by the Italians is certainly easy on the eye, and as Chelsea and Arsenal found out, very difficult to play against and the passing football played by Barcelona is arguably the greatest of all time. La Liga may be a two horse race, but the way television money works means it is virtually impossible for another team to break the strangle hold of Barcelona and Madrid dominance, even Malaga who have a rich owner have hardly threatened to make a title challenge.
But the proof is in the pudding, despite English clubs progressing into the latter stages, they are trailing their Italian and Spanish counter parts in the winner’s category. It’s also worth pointing out that both Italy and Spain have won the World Cup in the last ten years (and European Championship for Spain), while England haven’t even looked like being serious contenders for the crown.
Each of the English teams have their reasons for their poor showing in this years elite competition, Manchester City can claim they are concentrating on winning the Premier-League, with the Champions League coming later on in their plans for football domination. Manchester United has hardly strengthened their squad since the loss of Ronaldo and the retirement of Scholes proved how they missed a midfielder with guile and class.
Chelsea seem to be a club in transition which is taking a bumpy track, with constant reports of player revolts and Arsenal have lost Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas and replaced them with Mikel Arteta and Yossi Benyayoun, so when they was outclassed at the San Siro it was hardly a surprise.
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Being the richest league in the world doesn’t necessarily make it the strongest as the list of winners show, and while English clubs may be able to attract big name players the biggest ones are choosing to ply their trade outside of the UK. Sky have been able to take the Premier League to audiences far and wide, but the truth is English football isn’t as strong as Sky would like to think it is.
Mick McCarthy described Wolves’ 3-1 win at home to West Brom as ‘a huge result’, but knows his team are still two matches away from safety.A Steven Fletcher brace and Adlene Guedioura’s volley secured what could prove to be three vital points at Molineux, as Wolves climbed out of the English Premier League relegation zone.
They are now one point clear of Blackpool and Wigan and three ahead of bottom side West Ham, with matches away to Sunderland and at home against Blackburn still to come.
“It is a huge result,” McCarthy told Sky Sports.
“But as I have said it is May 22 when it counts, so it a great result and we are out of the bottom three and we want to stay out of the bottom three but we have two huge games to play.”
Set-pieces proved to the difference in the match, with both of Wolves’ two first-half goals coming from corner kicks.
Guedioura’s strike in particular will have left West Brom boss Roy Hodgson scratching his head, with the Algeria midfielder left completely unmarked barely a metre out from the goal-line.
“I would like to think we are good at corners, but Roy will think they did not defend, but re-starts are a big part of the game,” McCarthy said.
“There were times when we had to keep the ball and we did get at them, but they are safe and they could do damage to us, so we had to get into their faces and see who wanted to win more, but they did put us under pressure in the second half.”
Hodgson was proud of his beaten players for keeping up the fight, despite going 3-0 down with nothing left to play for this season.
“We had a lot of opportunities in their box and did our level best to get back from 3-1 down, which I don’t think many teams would have done at this stage of the season when they’re safe and they’ve got the beach to look forward, and there’s no question of that,” Hodgson said.
This can’t happen again. It is time for the Glazers to leave.
Its amazing what 30 protesters outside your house can do. Wayne Rooney signs a new five year deal. What a week in the life of Manchester United. The spotlight was on the greatest club in the world, and its fair to say they dealt with the crisis as well as they could. Sir Alex Ferguson and David Gill did not rush statements out or get into a media battle with Wayne Rooney and his advisor’s. However, Wayne Rooney’s statement about the ‘lack of ambition’ at the club and the ‘failure to attract the worlds top stars’ to Old Trafford will have damaged Manchester United’s reputation.
Has this week finally brought an end to the Glazer’s time at Old Trafford. They need to invest in both what they have – in terms of youngsters – as well as bringing top players to Old Trafford. Do they have the funds? And do Manchester United fans truly believe they will?
If United had lost Rooney it would have been highly damaging for the American owners. They are hated by Manchester United fans – they have saddled the club with huge debts and have shown no signs of investing in new talent. If United had lost their last remaining talisman, after the departures of Ronaldo and Tevez, there would have been uproar at Old Trafford. The selling of top names to pay off the debts they have brought onto the club would be the accusation – and who could argue against this.
It is time for the Glazers to sell the club to the Red Knights group. This type of crisis, where a player of the stature of Wayne Rooney has openly criticised the ambition of the club must send alarm bells ringing throughout the club.
To be fair, the Glazers have stumped up the cash for Wayne Rooney’s new five year deal. However, if it hadn’t been for the expert handling of the situation from David Gill and Sir Alex Ferguson, Rooney would have been out of the door and United’s season would have been thrown into further chaos. In fact now, United can regroup, revitalise under one goal – with everybody moving in the same direction on the pitch.
The Glazers show no sign of wanting to sell. With Wayne Rooney signed to a five year deal the clubs value has risen. If United had sold Rooney, the Red Knights would have valued the club at far less than the £1billion they were prepared to pay last season.
One Red Knight added that the value of Manchester United, without Rooney, could be ‘closer to the £790m the Glazer family paid in May 2005.’
Will the events of this week put the Glazers in a stronger position at Old Trafford. Certainly not. United fans know that this can’t happen again. The only way that Manchester United can truly attract the best players is if the Glazer family leave Old Trafford. The debt saddled on the club has meant that United can’t go and spend the money they once did on Juan Sebastian Veron and Wayne Rooney.
Here lies the major problem. With Van Der Sar, Neville, Giggs and Scholes all tipped to leave within eighteen months, where is the investment coming from to replace these players. Can United really afford to replace great players with the likes of Kucshzack, Raphael, Obertan and Gibson and continue to challenge for honours?
It is now or never for the Glazer ownership. Manchester United can never be put in a position where one of their own is challenging the direction of the club. Granted it could be player power gone mad or Rooney trying to gain leverage for a new deal. What ever it was it happened and has damaged the club. With the position the Glazer’s have put United in, Ferguson was a sitting duck to such a humiliating attack.
Under the Glazers, Manchester United’s record has been very good. Three Premiership titles and a Champions League, along with League Cup success. No doubt there has been success but with United moving into a transition period the club needs to change hands in the immediate future.
There is one man that could change the situation United have no found themselves in. If Sir Alex Ferguson turned on the ownership, Manchester United fans could have their club back. His support for them has made many United fans (not all) fall into line and trust his judgement. Could the events of the last week finally open Ferguson’s eyes to the true cost the Glazer family are having on the club. This week was a close call, this can never be allowed to happen again. The Glazers time at Old Trafford has to be brought to an end.
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I think it’s fair to say that the football league is in a rather tempestuous place: struggling with a debt crisis of its members whilst watching the elite Premier League clubs drifting ever further away from their humbler counterparts. The introduction of the play-off system has been a positive of recent times adding extra incentive and money in the late season. However, the current reforms on offer might not be quite so beneficial.
The proposed plans to revamp the player academy system in the leagues are being received, at best, with mixed reviews. To some the plans are inconvenient, and for others they are disastrous.
The reforms state that instead of receiving compensation for academy players as decided by a tribunal, with each team offering their evaluation of the player, the clubs will now receive a set figure for every year the player has been at the club. Simon Burnton (Guardian) gives the example of Luke Garbutt, signed by Everton from Leeds in 2009 as a sixteen year old. A tribunal decided Garbutt’s price at over £600,000 but the new system would price him at just over £130,000.
The elite player performance plan, or EPPP, will therefore make it easier and cheaper for top Premiership clubs to sign academy players from those in the lower leagues. Not only will tribunals be scrapped but so will the rule saying that clubs can only sign players under the age of sixteen if they live less than ninety minutes away. The idea is that top clubs will spend more time training the youth prospects and as a result the young players, the clubs that signed them, and hopefully the English national team will benefit.
However there are numerous problems with this theory and there is the very real danger that it will only be the Premier League clubs that benefit from the change in rules.
First of all: club academies can be a great source of income for lower league clubs and whilst not all clubs will suffer, the clubs with brilliant academies will. The removal of the tribunals could be feasible, if the new proposed compensation was more generous then it would be understandable. But frankly you have to ask the question of whether such a small returns on players that take so long to nurture will be reward enough for the lower league clubs? Will they continue to invest in youth development in the same way if the rewards are not so great? Not only will they receive less money for their academy graduates but also they will also not be able to hold on to them as easily as any club in the country could poach them.
As far as the national squad is concerned I understand the reasoning that young players should be coached by the best coaches at the top clubs but the danger is that with less rewards on offer perhaps the lower clubs will stop producing talented players at all because of a lack of incentive. Where would the national team be without the constant stream of talent being produced by smaller clubs? Are we suggesting that we want to put all of our trust in the coaching systems at a few clubs when there are some excellent academies around Britain at ‘smaller’ clubs? Take Southampton for example who, in the last five years, have provided us with Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Surely this is an academy that we should be supporting not undercutting.
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Furthermore, with the players costing less for the top clubs, what’s to stop them from simply taking many more academy players even if they don’t necessarily think they’re good enough? The lower club might be losing a player that the other team barely even wants. What is more is that whilst the youth players at bigger clubs might receive better coaching they will receive a less intensive form of it with so many more youth players signed.
Yes, we want all of our prospects to be coached by the best, but is this reform not simply a proposal to get around the problem that there are not enough good coaches to go around. The solution should not be to take human resources away from the ‘smaller’ clubs and effectively give them to the ‘bigger’ clubs but should instead be a huge investment in the way we train coaches in this country.
There are less than 3000 English coaches with either A, B or Pro badges from UEFA. Spain, Italy, Germany and France all have between 18,000 and 35,000 each. The EPPP will not solve this. The creation of the FA centre at Burton (to be opened mid 2012) will go some way to aiding this problem but more needs to be done, and I’m not sure that this reform is the answer. If anything it might exasperate the problem. If the top clubs do start to take on more and more, cheaper, academy graduates from other clubs they may also need to increase their coaching staff. I wonder which clubs they will be taking the extra youth coaches from?
However there are some positives to the scheme for the small clubs involved: their grants for youth development will be increased next year if they accept the proposals. However, whether the grants are increased by enough to make it worthwhile for league clubs to train players that they will lose early and for little money is yet to be seen.
Frankly the Premier league should be offering more money to clubs for youth development regardless of whether they reform the academy system or not. The fact that they are withholding this season’s grant until the proposals are passed suggests that they have too much financial clout and some feel that that the FA should step in.
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There might be good intentions behind this reform but ultimately the smaller clubs are losing players, money and possibly members of their coaching teams, and for what? So the top clubs can have more talented youngsters and increase the gap between them and the clubs they pillaged both monetarily and in quality.
Arsene Wenger has been left frustrated by his Arsenal’s team latest failure to sustain their challenge for major honours at home and abroad.Arsenal are in action at home to Aston Villa on Sunday, but they would prefer to be contesting the FA Cup final at Wembley the day before.
Wenger’s side bowed out of the competition against Manchester United in the quarter-finals.
They had already suffered a shock defeat to Birmingham in the League Cup final, before also exiting the Champions League against Barcelona for the second successive season.
And a run of frustrating results saw the north London side drop out of contention for the English Premier League title yet again.
“We just felt we could not get over the line,” Wenger said.
“We want to analyse why that was.”
“It is very frustrating for us because we were very close in every competition. We feel very flat because we wanted to be involved in the FA Cup final this weekend.”
“We do not feel that we under-performed overall because we were in the Carling Cup Final, the quarter-final of the FA Cup against Manchester United, we lost three days after Barcelona, so we produced quality games and at the end of the day there are objective signs for us that show we have the quality.”
Boasting some of the more impressive statistics in the Premier League, Wenger believes his team are agonisingly close to finally turning potential into prizes.
“We are the best team in the league away from home and we have the best defence in open play,” he said.
“We feel we have made up some of the gap between us and the top teams from the seasons before – we are top of the league in the top four of Man United, Chelsea and Man City. So we have every reason to be frustrated.”
Wenger thinks Arsenal could still overhaul Chelsea and claim second place, provided other results go their way in the final two matches.
“We can still catch the second place and we can finish second, third or fourth, depending on our results.”
“Of course we want to finish in the top three and if possible second. It is not unrealistic to finish second when you are just three points behind.”
“If Man City can want third place because they are only two points behind, so it’s open.”
Midfielders Cesc Fabregas (thigh) and Samir Nasri (hamstring) are doubts for Villa’s visit to the Emirates Stadium.
Defender Laurent Koscielny (thigh) and midfielders Abou Diaby (calf) and Tomas Rosicky (thigh) are all out.