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English Premier League Preview: Week 13
Saturday 20th November
Sunderland vs Arsenal
Sunderland face a tough game against Arsenal who struggle to establish themselves as serious title contenders again after a few dubious seasons, and they are certainly doing well at ...
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Soccer
The Battle For Fourth Place?
Six-hour flights to Doha, 15,000 riot police marshaling stadia, and the hand of Henry sending the Irish dancing back to Dublin were just some of the main talking points of a frenetic and controversial, international break.
Football players and fans ...
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Soccer
Manchester United Need Jonny Evans to Have the Nemanja Vidic Effect
Most casual observers of Premier League football attribute Manchester United's trilogy of consecutive championships to be largely based on an ingredient no longer present: Cristiano Ronaldo.
But it's intellectual evasion to simply attribute ...
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Soccer
Rafa Benitez's Bargain Hunting Costing Liverpool Dearly
At the close of last season, it was thought that Liverpool were finally going to end the run which has seen them not lift the league trophy since the managerial tenure of Anfield legend Kenny Dalglish.
Now, a mere 12 games into the new season, they ...
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Soccer
Liverpool
Rafael Benitez
Manchester United Will Have an Asian Jersey Sponsor One Day
The English Premier League is arguably the top professional league in Europe. It is also the most watched sporting league in the world and the top earning soccer league.
And Manchester United is arguably the most globally recognizable brand in the ...
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Soccer
Harry Redknapp Launches Scathing Attack on Spurs Squad Players
Spurs sit in fourth place after getting off to their best start to a league campaign in some time. But Harry Redknapp has indicated to his team that he is not prepared to sit on his laurels by lashing out at certain squad members for complaining to ...
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Soccer
Birmingham's Ferguson Must Play For Scotland Again
The outspoken views of Tartan Army chief Alan Duncan about Scotland fans reacting angrily to the potential return of Barry Ferguson and former teammate Allan McGregor to the international fold—just months after their lifetime bans by the Scottish ...
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Soccer
Arsenal-Chelsea Rivalry May Decide This Season's Champion
The Chelsea-Arsenal rivalry was born in 1907 when the two first played against one other. This was the first time that two London teams had played each other in the First Division and drew a staggering capacity of 65,000.The most of it is been ...
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Soccer
Who Should Deputize Alexandre Song When He Goes to the African Nations?
Alexandre Song was easily the most criticized Arsenal midfielder during Arsenal's poor season in 2008/2009. Early lackluster performances enabled the Arsenal fans to slag off the Cameroonian. But 2009/2010 has seen the 22-year-old become a mature ...
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Soccer
Arsenal
Arsène Wenger
Cesc Fàbregas
Denilson
Arsene Wenger's Central Thinking Can Solve Arsenal's Striking Problems
As Robin Van Persie was stretchered off on Saturday night, you would have forgiven Arsene Wenger for bemoaning his own rotten luck. Losing a player of Van Persie's stock and standing would hurt any team, let alone a team set up with the Dutch man as ...
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Soccer
Arsenal
Arsène Wenger
France Cheat Their Way Past Heroic Ireland To South Africa
France cheated their way to South Africa tonight after Ireland succumbed to a travesty of justice as Thierry Henry handled the ball twice in the build up to William Gallas' winning goal.
It was an outrageous way to win the match after Ireland had ...
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Soccer
France
South Africa
Thierry Henry
William Gallas
Robbie Keane
Ireland's Giovanni Trapattoni May Regret Omitting Sunderland's Andy Reid
Ireland faces France this evening in an attempt to secure a place in the World Cup. They travel to the Stade de France, knowing that a victory is required to keep their hopes alive. At the time of writing they are leading the game 1-0 after a goal by ...
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Soccer
Liverpool V Man City: Rafa's Reds Must Slam Top Four Door in City's Face
After embarking on a miserable run of only one win in nine, after conceding goals left, right and centre to the likes of Birmingham, Sunderland, and Fulham, and after showing such desperation in matches that a player has needed to dive to rescue a ...
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Soccer
Five Things Fabio Capello Learnt About England After Playing Brazil
Now that the dust has settled on England’s 1-0 defeat to Brazil on Saturday it’s time to examine exactly what Fabio Capello will have learnt from the Three Lions’ trip to Doha.
The match was only Capello’s fourth defeat as England manager and ...
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Soccer
The Ten Greatest Chelsea Players of the Abramovich Era
When Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea Football Club in the summer of 2003, he changed the shape of European football. Since that time, Chelsea has emerged as an annual front-runner for English and European glory.
In Chelsea's pursuit of becoming the ...
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Soccer
Chelsea
Ashley Cole
Didier Drogba
Frank Lampard
John Terry
Andriy Voronin: Liverpool FC's Invisible Man
Rafa Benitez once described Andriy Voronin in the following manner: "He is clever, has great game awareness and gives us so many options in attack. He can play behind a main striker, lead the line himself, or come into attack from the flanks.”
...
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Soccer
Hull City: Phil Brown and The Tigers' New Regime
It's been three weeks now since Paul Duffen, the chairman of Hull City, resigned his position in charge of Hull City, after the release of the Club's finances. In his place came Adam Pearson, seen as a returning Messiah by many fans.
The man who ...
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Soccer
David Beckham Deserves 1000 Caps If He Rescues England's World Cup Bid
As happens without fail every four years, World Cup talk is dominating English football.
For the players in and around manager Fabio Capello’s national squad, the focus is on making the plane for South Africa next summer.
For those lucky enough ...
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Soccer
Arsenal: Maturity and Team Spirit Can Overcome November Injury Problems
Same old, same old.
Come November and Arsenal is once again tormented by injuries. With 10 players currently sidelined, it looks like the hard preseason program Wenger introduced at the beginning of the season has not worked to full effect.
...
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Soccer
Why Brad "The Human Wall" Friedel Is My All-Time Favorite Goalkeeper
Throughout the history of football, there have been many great goalkeepers. From Gordon Banks and Lev Yashin to Peter Schmeichel and Gianluigi Buffon, the world has been lucky to see many great keepers lead their team to victories.
However, my ...
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Soccer
Robin Van Placenta and Man Utd V. Arsenal Squad Comparison Part 4
All the news today is about Robin.
Mr. Period foot this. Abortion Ankle that.
Sheesh you´d think he´d killed a baby!
Hilarity aside. Robin is off to Serbia - probably to some obscure technological dungeon where they harvest human bodies for ...
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Soccer
Aaron Hunt: A Lost Cause for England, but Future Asset For Premier League?
Aaron Hunt has started the season in an impressing fashion, bagging five goals in his last six games. The son of a German father and English mother, he was even considered by Capello to be a potential reinforcement for the English national side.
...
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Soccer
Has Rafael Benitez's Time at Liverpool Been a Failure?
The title of this piece may have surprised you.
Sure, Rafael Benitez is going through a bad patch, but how can a man who led Liverpool to fifth place in his first season and had turned that into second place by last season be a failure?
How can a ...
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Soccer
England's World Cup Squad: Who's Hot, Who's Not?
Saturday’s defeat to Brazil was only the fourth in Fabio Capello’s 21 games in charge of the England team, but the Italian will have been far from impressed by the performances from a number of England players in a game in which they were flattered ...
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Soccer
Sir Alex Ferguson Forced to End BBC Silent Treatment
Sir Alex Ferguson has endured a week of toil after being handed an unprecedented £20,000 fine for his controversial comments over the fitness of Premier League referee Alan Wiley.
He described Wiley as being “not fit enough” to take charge of ...
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Soccer
Manchester United's Nani Plays with Fire?
Nani, who joined Manchester United in a £17 million deal from Sporting Lisbon in May 2007, has failed to live up to the expectation that surrounded his arrival at the club.
The 22-year-old is in his third season for the club but has failed to ...
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Soccer
Part Three: Comparing Manchester United and Arsenal
Dear all,
Please forgive me.
I shouldn´t have been lazy.
I shouldn´t have tested the fates.
I should have finished my article comparing the Arsenal and Manchester United squads.
I said last week that I would be doing a squad comparison ...
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Soccer
Who Is Arsenal's Most Underrated Player?
It is something that occurs on every team on the planet. There will alway's be a player who consistently and constantly gives 100 percent, barely putting a foot wrong but sadly receiving little or no credit for their effort.
Meanwhile, the ...
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Soccer
Arsenal
Nani's Public Outburst May Have Sealed His Old Trafford Exit
If you ever want to stamp your ticket out of Old Trafford, publicly abusing Sir Alex Ferguson is certainly one of way of getting your wish.
Nani did exactly this last week and it seems increasingly likely that his third year in England may well be ...
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Soccer
Andrei Arshavin: One of the Most Underrated Players in the World?
It's a fact: there are underrated things, and there are overrated things.
That's just how the world works.
This is also true when it comes to the world of football. While some players' efforts are greatly unappreciated, some are greatly ...
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Soccer
Hull City Go to the World Cup
When I was a kid watching the Tigers there was not much to cheer in the way of Hull City players in the World Cup finals. The Tigers' teams were usually made up of low level British players with no chance of anyone playing for Scotland or Eire, let ...
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Soccer
Robin Van Persie International Duty Injury Signals Disaster For Arsenal
In-form Arsenal striker Robin van Persie was stretched off just 15 minutes into Holland’s international friendly with Italy last night after a challenge by Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini.
Initial reports suggest van Persie sustained a serious ...
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Soccer
Spurs' Wonderkid John Bostock Scores Twice on His Debut for Brentford
Tottenham's on-loan John Bostock scored a remarkable double on his debut for Brentford, as the Bees drew 2-2 with Millwall. And he was then described as a "young Zinedine Zidane" by Brentford's boss, Andy Scott.
The Spurs youngster is expected to ...
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Soccer
Tottenham Hotspur
Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool: Analysis In the Premier League Thus Far
Another exciting year of the Premier League is underway. As any Premier League competition, it's been full of surprises, dismays, exciting rumors, and unexplainable losses.
This particular writer is going to look back at the campaign of Arsenal, ...
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Soccer
Ireland 0-1 France: Advantage Les Bleus After Priceless Anelka Away Goal
France took one giant step towards the World Cup finals in South Africa this evening after they beat Ireland 1-0 at Croke Park in the first leg of the UEFA playoffs. Nicolas Anelka's deflected strike was enough to secure a deserved advantage for ...
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Soccer
France
Robbie Keane
World Cup
Thierry Henry
How Fabio Capello Can Lead England to Glory in South Africa
On May 8, 2006, Sven-Goran Eriksson surprised the footballing world by naming inexperienced 16-year-old Arsenal starlet Theo Walcott in his final World Cup squad.
Two months later, Eriksson apologized no fewer than NINE times in a televised ...
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Soccer
US Men v. Slovakia: The Glass is Half . . .
A Slovakian team that was (apparently) good in European qualifying, but not well ranked by FIFA, played a defensive, counter-attacking game against the USA in a partially filled stadium, on a pretty ugly field and won 1-0 on a weak penalty call. ...
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Soccer
Ars Bandeet and Other Funny Names from the Wonderful World of Football
Never heard of Ars Bandeet? How about Einar Aas? No? Well everyone's heard of Segar Bastard, haven't they? For every Diego and Pele, there has been an Ars or an Aas. Here are a couple of the greatest names ever to grace a football pitch.
Well we ...
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Soccer
Can Darren Bent Convince Fabio Capello of His England Worth?
Sunderland forward Darren Bent is set to make his first start for the Three Lions under Fabio Capello, as England take on Brazil in a prestige friendly in Qatar this afternoon. But what does the Black Cat have to do to book a seat on the plane to ...
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Soccer
Manchester United's Nani Plays with Fire?
Nani, who joined Manchester United in a £17 million deal from Sporting Lisbon in May 2007, has failed to live up to the expectation that surrounded his arrival at the club.
The 22 year old, is in his third season for the club but has failed to ...
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Soccer
Save Our Season: Has Rafa Benitez Taken Liverpool as Far as He Can?
As we approach mid-November, a season that began just four months ago and held such exciting expectations for Liverpool, has collapsed in spectacular fashion.
After last season's impressive second place finish, many thought that 2009/10 would be ...
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Soccer
Liverpool
Steven Gerrard
Jamie Carragher
Rafael Benitez
Pepe
Dirk Kuyt
Carlo Cudicini's Misfortune Opens the Door For Pompey's David James
Carlo Cudicini's career hangs in the balance this weekend after a horrific motorcycle crash that saw him fracture both his wrists and badly injure his pelvis. The 36-year-old Tottenham Hotspur 'keeper was pulled from the mangled remains of his BMW ...
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Soccer
Part Two: Is Manchester United Better Than Arsenal?
Well hello,
Today is a good day. I woke up.
Now the construction workers had turned off the water in my area from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. These, of course, being the hours when NOBODY is trying to wake up and get to work.
I repeat NOBODY!
...
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Soccer
Big Talking Nicklas Bendtner Must Learn To Walk the Walk for Arsenal
As the saying goes, "if you talk the talk, you've got to walk the walk," and Nicklas Bendtner certainly talks the talk. The young Dane is notorious for his outspoken views about his own abilities and his ambitions. Some call it egotism, some call it ...
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Soccer
Arsenal
Arsène Wenger
Should Niall Quinn Back Sunderland Supporters in Police Brutality Row?
The Football Supporters Federation have launched an online petition in response to Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn’s decision to ban a small number of Black Cats supporters involved in an incident at Newcastle Central Train Station on Aug. 9.
For ...
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Soccer
Hull City's Ian Ashbee, Unsung Hero of English Football
English football is littered with heroes from every generation, from every team, and every division. Manchester City's Bert Trautmann's heroics in the 1956 FA Cup final playing 17-minutes with a broken neck instantly springs to mind.
Steve Bull of ...
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Soccer
Does Manchester United Spank Arsenal's Arse?
Goooooood morning Gooners!
Apologies for the late blog today, I had some nasty bug since this weekend, so I chose to lie in for a bit this morning rather than rising early and starting my blog for all y'all.
So, a couple of days ago we had ...
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Soccer
EPL Quarter Report: What We Know So Far
The Premier League is more then 10 games in, meaning the race is starting to take shape. Despite a few small surprises, (cough Liverpool cough) everything is pretty much shaping up the way we could have expected. The big four are winning, the ...
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Soccer
Owen Hargreaves Return Affects Whole United Midfield
When Owen Hargreaves finally returns from injury, in what may be his last chance to achieve his prime, United manager Alex Ferguson can again field his strongest midfield.
But the Englishman, so influential in United's 2008 European double-winning ...
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Soccer
Owen Hargreaves
Manchester United
Luke Young Turns Down England Call, Retires From International Football
It has emerged that Fabio Capello attempted to call up Luke Young to replace the injured Glen Johnson in the England squad to take on Brazil on Saturday, but it has come to light that the defender has in fact retired from international football.
...
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