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Showing posts with label Liverpool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liverpool. Show all posts

The terrific Draw between West Ham & Tottenham

12:19 PM | Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


West Ham goalkeeper Robert Green made a series of fine saves to help West Ham earn a 0-0 draw against London rivals Tottenham at White Hart Lane on Saturday. Green was in unbeatable form and saved his best moment until the final minutes when he tipped Gareth Bale's free-kick onto the crossbar. The England international's man-of-the-match display ensured Avram Grant's side overcame waves of Tottenham pressure and moved out of the relegation zone ahead of Saturday's 1500GMT matches. Spurs were handed a tough task when they were pitted against Real Madrid in Friday's draw for the Champions League quarter-finals. But their focus was on this London derby as they tried to close the three-point gap on Chelsea in the race for a top-four finish. Make no mistake, there is no love lost between these two sides. There is a deep-rooted rivalry that has only intensified following the battle for the Olympic Stadium. Tottenham and West Ham both launched bids for the stadium in Stratford and the latter were successful. West Ham arrived at White Hart Lane in their best form of the season. Wins over Liverpool and Stoke in the Premier League have improved their chancaes of beating relegation.


However, they were missing injured striker Frederic Piquionne while Robbie Keane could not play as part of his loan agreement from Tottenham. Spurs' first shot at goal came from an unlikely source as defender Michael Dawson struck the bar with a shot from the edge of the box. Jermain Defoe then had his first chance when he connected with Bale's cross in the seventh minute but he was unable to direct his effort on target. Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart both had chances as Tottenham looked likeliest to break the deadlock. But West Ham had chances to score themselves. The best fell to Carlton Cole, which the England striker wasted when he shot straight at Heurelho Gomes with just the Spurs goalkeeper to beat. Defoe should have given Spurs the lead in the 40th minute. Aaron Lennon's effort struck the post and the ball rebounded into Defoe's path. However, the England international was caught off-guard and the ball bounced off his shin and wide. After the restart Cole had another chance for West Ham while Defoe was denied again, this time by Green, who saved with his legs. As Tottenham continued to squander their chances, West Ham started growing in confidence and the impressive Mark Noble came close to giving them a 56th minute lead with an overhead kick that was only just wide. Demba Ba was next to try his luck with a shot from the edge of the box that Gomes did well to parry. Both sides continued to press for an opening and made a flurry of substitutions to break the stalemate. Tottenham substitute Roman Pavly-uchenko looked the most threatening and had two shots inside a minute that forced Green to make two saves. Green then denied Bale again, as West Ham clung on for a point to help their relegation battle.

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Posted by sojib

UEFA Europa League: English sent packing

2:16 AM | Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


Big-spending English giants Manchester City, Liverpool and Rangers crashed out of the last 16 of the Europa League on Thursday to end Britain's interest in the competition. Roberto Mancini's City side, bank-rolled from Abu Dhabi by Sheikh Mansour's £500 million investment, beat Dynamo Kiev 1-0 at Eastlands but bowed out 2-1 on aggregate. At Anfield a lacklustre Liverpool eked out a goalless draw with Sporting Braga to put the plucky Portuguese side through 1-0 on aggregate. Scottish giants Rangers, the finalists of the then UEFA Cup in 2008, had been in a strong position after coming away from their first leg at PSV Eindhoven with a scoreless stalemate. But a 13th minute goal from Jermain Lens meant it was the Dutch visitors rather than Rangers whose name went into Friday's draw. Joining PSV, Dynamo and Braga in the last eight were Benfica, FC Twente, Spartak Moscow, FC Porto, Villarreal. In Manchester, City were cut to 10 men in the 37th minute after Italian Mario Balotelli was shown a straight red for a dreadful, high one-footed lunge at Goran Popov in a bad-tempered clash that also saw seven yellow cards brandished. But the home side rebounded immediately after Balotelli's rash challenge through Aleksandar Kolarov, the Serb scoring from an indirect free-kick through a congested area. Over at Anfield, Liverpool striker Andy Carroll made his first start since his £35 million move from Newcastle in January. But Kenny Dalglish's men failed to find their spark against Braga who were progressing to the last eight of a European competition for the first time in their history.


Liverpool's sorry tally of only one goal in their last five Europa run-outs ultimately cost them dear. PSV qualified when catching Rangers on the break, with Lens sliding home Balazs Dzsudzsak's cross from the left.PSG went out 3-2 to Portugual's Benfica after the two teams finished 1-1 on the night. Nicolas Gaitan bagged that all-important away goal for the Lisbon-based club in the 27th minute, an ambitious left-footed shot swerving past the static Apoula Edel in goal.PSG responded eight minutes later, Mathieu Bodmer sending in a screamer of a right-foot volley into the corner of the net, but the Portuguese side held out. In Moscow, Spartak wrapped up a comprehensive 4-0 aggregate victory over toothless Ajax, the Russians winning 3-0 on the night courtesy of goals from Dmitri Kombarov, and Brazilian duo Welliton and Alex. There was no such luck for Spartak's domestic rivals Zenit St-Petersburg, whose 2-0 defeat of Dutch side FC Twente was not enough to overhaul a first-leg 3-0 deficit. And another Russian club, CSKA Moscow, lost 2-1 at FC Porto to go out 3-1 on aggregate, while Villarreal beat Bayer Leverkusen by the same scoreline to qualify 5-3 over the two legs.

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Napoli face crucial test at AC Milan

9:36 PM | Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,


Italian club Napoli will find out if they are truly ready to challenge for the Serie-A crown this season when they travel to AC Milan in the crunch clash ties of the weekend.The game has been moved to Monday night to give the southerners an extra day’s rest following their Europa League exertions against Villarreal on Thursday.But the super-clash between the top two in the league will give Walter Mazzarri’s team the chance to show what they are made of.

In a season full of surprises that initially saw Lazio leading the table and champions Inter Milan struggling down in eighth place at the turn of the year, Napoli appear to have demonstrated that they have the staying power to go all the way.Still splitting the two Milan clubs with a mere 12 matches to play in the season, Napoli must genuinely be considered as very tide title contenders for the first time since the days of Diego Maradona.And although the club’s staff and players refuse to even pronounce the word title there is no denying that they are where they are on merit.

However, there has been one thing missing from their pursuit of glory this season and that has been the ability to cut the mustard against the very best.They may have done the double over Roma this season and thumped Juventus 3-0 at home in January but both sides are suffering from transitional campaigns and currently sit sixth and seventh respectively.When it mattered against the two big Milanese sides, Napoli came up short.

They lost 2-1 at home to Milan earlier on in the season despite enjoying a large part of the game and also proved frail defensively when they played away to Inter and lost 3-1.In two games against Liverpool in the Europa League group stage they also failed to secure a win.For them to go the whole way this season they are going to need to prove they can also come out on top in the biggest games where there is the most at stake.

They sit three points behind Milan and two ahead of Inter, meaning a win for Mazzarri’s team could result in the top three being separated by only two points when the weekend is up.If there is one thing in their favour it is that Milan have also proved susceptible to negative results in their biggest home games of the season.Not only did they lose 2-1 to Juventus and 1-0 to Roma but Tottenham came to the San Siro in the Champions League knock-out phase and also left with a crucial 1-0 success.

Milan also failed to beat fourth placed Lazio at home and needed a pair of controversial goals to sneak a 2-2 draw against Real Madrid in the Champions League group stages.A sign that Milan may be feeling the strain came from vice-president Adriano Galliano who was at pains to tell Radio Italia that the game would be no more important than any other.‘It,s keenly expected because it’s top against second but there,s still just three out of the 36 points left on offer’ he said.

‘Lets not forget that a victory over Napoli won't mean we’ve won the title, and vice versa.’The later start to the game means Inter can leapfrog Napoli on Sunday if they win away to Sampdoria.Juventus host Bologna on Saturday night and Roma entertain Parma on Sunday as the two traditional heavyweights look to drag themselves back into Champions League qualification contention.

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