Liverpool have crashed to a 3-2 defeat at the hands of Udinese in the Europa League on Thursday.
The Reds were in the ascendancy at half-time after Jonjo Shelvey’s strike had given them the lead, but the Serie A visitors scored three times in a row in the second 45 to take the advantage; Antonio Di Natale, a Sebastian Coates own goal and a Giovanni Pasquale strike doing the damage.
Despite Luis Suarez pulling one back, Anfield boss Brendan Rodgers has berated his side for a lack of concentration, as their early season inconsistent form continues.
“It’s quite straightforward. We were very, very good in the first half and the problem we had in the first 15 or 20 minutes of the second half had been with us since the start of the season,” Rodgers is quoted as saying by Sky Sports.
“We lose concentration and become lazy and in that period we go 3-1 down.
“We just concede goals too easily, that’s something we need to improve on. We can’t have to score three, four or five goals to win games.
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“We’re just disappointed after such a good first half to give away such poor goals in the second half to leave us chasing the game,” he concluded.
After conceding another last minute goal that puts Ipswich bottom of the Championship the club has said farewell to manager Paul Jewell.
I have no doubts that Jewell was fully committed to the job and he seemed like a great guy, but the recent performances have been worse than anything Ipswich fans have seen in a long time. The problem was simply that the former Derby boss was not good enough at motivating the players and setting the side up tactically.
The big question now is who will be the next Ipswich manager?
The job isn’t very attractive when you first think about it. The squad is filled with loan signings and players on short-term contracts. Additionally, the team are bottom of the table so whoever comes in will basically spend the next year fighting relegation as well as rebuilding the squad. To top it off the club’s reputation has been steadily in decline for years and Portman Road doesn’t attract as a big a crowd as it used to.
However, there are some positives that may help the club attract a decent manager.
What Jewell was good at was finding some good young talent for the club; it was just a shame that he couldn’t ever make the most of it. Whoever comes into the club will inherit a squad that is a bit of a mess but at the same time has a decent amount of young players that can only get better. It certainly seems like Jewell has left the squad in a better condition than Keane did because the latter stripped the team of all its young talent, whereas Jewell brought in younger players.
Furthermore, the big perk of being Ipswich manager is having money to spend which is a privilege that many clubs can not offer. Marcus Evans is also an owner that is well known for his patience and managers will like the fact that Ipswich only sack their manager as a last resort.
Many people have suggested names such as Poyet, Di Canio, Redknapp, Hoddle, Solskjaer and others but these are all unrealistic targets that I can’t see coming into the club. As it stands there are too many managers linked with the job to talk about them all but I will go through a few of the more realistic options.
Lower league managers such as Gillingham’s Martin Allen and MK Dons Karl Robinson are potential choices. Allen’s Gillingham side currently sit top of League Two and the Gills boss has had a lot of success in most of the jobs he has taken on but unfortunately he has often clashed with club owners. Robinson was the youngest Football League manager when he took over the Dons at the age of 29 and has guided them to 5th place two years running.
The three biggest names that could realistically become manager are Alan Curbishley, Mick McCarthy and Owen Coyle. These three experienced bosses are all currently out of contract and will be considered the three favourites to get the job.
Curbishley left West Ham under controversial circumstances as players had been sold without his permission but the former Hammers boss has a decent win percentage in every job he’s had. McCarthy is statistically just as impressive and in my eyes was harshly sacked by Wolves. Coyle did not have much luck at Bolton but you can’t deny that he did a great job at Burnley as well as being extremely successful in Scotland beforehand.
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The five names that I have mentioned here are only a few of the choices but I believe they are the most realistic ones. Obviously each manager has very different pros and cons which are hard to weigh up but everyone will have their preferred choice. In all honesty I would be very happy with any of those managers apart from Martin Allen but my top choice would probably be Karl Robinson.
I expect that most would prefer one of the out of contract managers as they have had previous success at some point in the Championship but I think Robinson would be a great long-term choice which could bring stability to the club.
Don’t get me wrong – I think tattoos are cool when done tastefully and with at least a vague hint of subtlety – I even have one myself. But sometimes, people over do it. Footballers in particular, with their flashy cars, model girlfriends and grandiose abodes, often like to take tattoos to the next level which is surely a formula for disaster.
This is a list of 15 tattoos in world football that I feel are just awful. Whether it be through tired cliches, incorrectly spelled words or just simply ridiculous imagery, this collection of body ink will have you laughing, but at the same time worrying about humanity. If these players think their tattoos are ‘cool’, I think they may need to get their heads checked!
Click on Steven Ireland to unveil the 15
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Do you know of any more ridiculous tattoos in football? Let me know on twitter @dudeyoungy
Tottenham Hotspur striker Emmanuel Adebayor has asked his team mates to buck their ideas up after another disappointing performance in midweek.
The summer signing from Manchester City recklessly lost the game for Spurs away at Arsenal last Saturday after being sent off and the striker feels things aren’t clicking at White Hart Lane this season.
“We’re all frustrated about the way things are going,” Adebayor told The Sun.
“I don’t know what’s not clicking. Hopefully it will start clicking as soon as possible otherwise, trust me, we will find ourselves in difficulty.
“My friends tell me to keep positive so I don’t really want to think about how bad it could be. If we get worse than this, I think we’d be dead.
“It was our lucky day against Lazio. They got so many chances.
“At the moment things are looking bad, but we just have to find a way to get through this. We have to improve because we’re not playing the best game at the moment.”
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Tottenham will be hoping that a new year brings in the same old fortunes as they end 2012 in stunning form. They will be expecting to bag all 3 points against a Reading side firmly in the relegation mix up.
Spurs have won six of their last eight and they have really been hitting top gear. They sit well in contention for a Champions League finish as the top four is well in touching distance for them. The back to back victories they experienced in the Christmas would have certaintly added to their resolve to succeed.
Gareth Bale took centre stage as he scored a hatrick in the 4-0 win over Aston Villa, before helping his team grind out a 2-1 victory at the Stadium of Light against Sunderland last time out.
Andre Villas-Boas will be hoping his charges can build some momentum at White Hart Lane and make it a fortress once again like it had been for much of Harry Redknapp’s reign.
They will be confident of starting that job here as they face a Reading outfit they beat 3-1 at the Madjeski stadium earlier this season.
The Royals will not head to White Hart lane downbeat though as they just secured a valuable 3 points in their last outing against West Ham.
Even more promising was the return to form of their star forward Pavel Pogrebnyak as he managed to get on the scoresheet and make the difference.
They had been on a run of seven straight defeats for Brian McDermott’s men before this game so while a win last time out was welcomed, they need to get on the points trail soon as they lie 5 points adrift of safety.
Bale is suspended for this one after accruing his fifth booking of the season for what was debatably a dive. AVB has options to call on though with Clint Dempsey and Gylfi Sigurdsson both featuring at the Stadium of Light. Scott Parker could be pushing for his first start in a long time too.
Jason Roberts could finally return to the fold for Reading after missing the last 5 games with a hip injury. Adam Le Fondre will want to feature too, but Brian McDermott you suspect will name an unchanged side, sticking to what he knows with a winning formula last time out.
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No player has played longer without having a shot on goal than Reading’s Chris Gunter this season (980 mins), maybe he could go one better and score against his former club on Saturday.
Prediction: Tottenham 5-1 Reading
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Marseille president Vincent Labrune has rebuffed reports that striker Loic Remy is set to move to England in the January transfer window.
Remy is reportedly a target of numerous Premier League clubs but Newcastle United appear to be the front runners according to the English media with Queens Park Rangers and West Ham not a million miles behind.
However, good finances and Joey Barton in his ear may convince Remy and Marseille not to jump the gun.
Alan Pardew is on the look out for a top striker as it appears Demba Ba’s days at St James’ Park may be numbered and the French international may be the perfect replacement.
The 25-year-old has not been a regular in the Marseille starting line up this season and that has affected his international selection, so a move abroad may suit the player.
However, Labrune has claimed that he wants to keep the highly rated forward.
“I’m not looking for a way out for Loic,” Labrune told Le Parisien as reported by Sky Sports.
“I like him, and I know his potential.
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“Our finances are healthy.
“I don’t have to sell this winter, we’re rather in a position to buy one or two players to help continue the best start to a season the club has made in nearly 20 years.”
While the Christmas lists of Tottenham Hotspur supporters may have bestowed a whole variety of colourful and contrasting transfer targets, for the optimistic amongst the White Hart Lane faithful, there was a far more basic festive request to the club’s hierarchy.
Simply put, it was time to back Andre Villas-Boas to the hilt and address the side’s transfer needs both promptly and effectively. With less than ten days to go till deadline day however, supporters now find themselves in an all too familiar position.
Indeed, while in a perfect world fans would have seen Villas-Boas start the new year with one or two fresh players ready-made to boost the side’s top-four chasing credentials, supporters know all too well they don’t inhabit a faultless landscape. Because while on one hand they were served up the duo of Lewis Holtby and Ezekiel Fryers, the former isn’t set to arrive till the summer and the latter has been sent straight to the side’s development squad.
This is of course the painfully frustrating yet ultimately effective nature of a club run under the stewardship of chairman Daniel Levy and the ENIC Group. While some supporters would depict Levy’s game of transfer brinkmanship as pointless penny-pinching, the majority would rather describe it as a negotiating tactic born out of necessity.
While the club is by no means a pauper within the Premier League as a whole, Spurs are competing on a plateau of ambition alongside clubs with vastly superior means of financial resources. The road that’s led them from mid-table mediocrity post-Sugar to striving to dine upon Europe’s richest table hasn’t come without investment and it hasn’t stemmed solely from just careful accounting.
Although it certainly hasn’t come via coincidence either and Levy’s remit to squeeze every penny out of deals and playing a ruthless – and often even dangerous – game of risk in the transfer market, has played it’s part in cultivating the financially stable and relatively successful Spurs side we’ve seen today. Leaving things late in the transfer window has been a frustrating part of this.
Yet while the majority of support within the white half of North London remain firmly in sync with Levy’s extremely successful brand of club management, that frustration that often bubbles beneath the surface during the speculation of the transfer window has felt increasingly palpable.
The elder statesmen amongst the Spurs faithful have had more new dawns than most have had hot dinners, but even for the most skeptical of Andre Villas-Boas’ doubters, there’s a genuine feeling of optimism surrounding the team’s prospects under the helm of the Portuguese. For all the injuries, departures and incessant tabloid speculation that the ex-Chelsea boss has had to deal with since joining in the summer, the side sit fourth in the league, three points clear of fifth placed Everton with under half the season remaining.
It is of course a position the supporters are fairly well acquainted with and part of the frustration that’s continuing to simmer in N17, stems from events this time last year. But this January, there is no maverick Harry Redknapp of which Levy was rumoured to be wary of handing a considerable transfer warchest. Villas-Boas is the antidote, yet seemingly the same problems are continuing to exist.
With around a week-and-a-half left for Spurs to do business, the likelihood is that Levy will open the chequebook to bring in one or two fresh faces at White Hart Lane. Yet another likelihood of those arrivals, is that those two fresh faces are unlikely to be of the manager’s first choice. Or to use appropriate terminology, of the ‘head-coach’s’, first choice.
Under the club’s transfer committee structure, Villas-Boas does of course possess only a partial say as to which new faces come through the door at White Hart Lane. While it’s difficult to speculate who else may wield an influence within this committee, it’s thought that Levy seeks the counsel of both assistant manager Steffen Freund and most poignantly, technical coordinator Tim Sherwood.
Such a structure may have only been in place by name since Villas-Boas’ arrival, but in essence, it’s been in place at Spurs in some guise for several years now. Sherwood may now possess more influence, but the value Levy places upon the ex-Blackburn Rovers man’s views is no secret. Few successful clubs these days or even companies, operate with one man in sole charge and even Villas-Boas himself worked under such a regime during his time at Porto.
Yet at what point does the deliberation, the stalling and the internal politicking begin to detriment the club in the transfer market?
The club are arguably sitting with their own fate in their hands this January. With both Arsenal and Chelsea continuing to look both as unstable as they are inconsistent, there is a very real opportunity to push on and secure that top four position that’s so vital to the club’s progress.
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Regardless of the Redknapp implications last term, Spurs tried to get there from a similar position last season, on a free ticket. Regardless of the implosion that subsequently occurred, they cannot let that happen again.
Villas-Boas was the vision that Levy put his faith into, to bring him to the football club at the start of the season. If the money is there to spend, now is the time for the chairman to put his faith in the manager and do everything he can do to bolster his blueprints for a top four finish.
Spurs are competing for Champions League football for the second consecutive season without the funds that it provides. They might not be able to repeat the trick for a third year running. Levy has so often got it right in terms of the signings he’s acquired for the club but this month more than ever, he can’t afford to get it wrong.
Arsenal defender Thomas Vermaelen is enjoying his season as captain, even more so off the pitch now he has a new missus TV presenter Polly Parsons.
The Sun reported the story, as 28 year old Parsons split with fiancé Sid Owen from Eastenders at the end of April, and was quickly swooped off her feet by Arsenal’s number 5.
Polly Parsons is well known for her presenting role on BBC 3 programme ‘The Real Hustle’, and Vermaelen will be making sure he doesn’t get conned by Parsons, as she enters a relationship with the Belgian just a couple of months after breaking up with Owen.
Whilst Vermaelen may not be as good an actor as Sid Owen, his on the pitch toughness and leadership of the Arsenal back four is sure to have got him into Parsons’ good books.
Our gallery checks out Polly Parsons in action, and it’s fair to say we’re full of praise for Vermaelen!
Click on Miss Parsons below to see her in all her glory
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Michael Dawson urged his Tottenham teammates to overcome unfavourable odds by winning tonight’s Europa quarter-final against Basel, reported The Daily Mail.
The 29-year-old defender believed that his club could take inspiration from his improbable season with the Spurs, after he turned down a £10m bid from QPR to stay at White Hart Lane, and insisted they could advance to the club’s first Europa League semi-final in 29 years.
“I could have left Tottenham but I never, ever gave it a thought. It’s amazing where a bit of hard work can get you,” said Dawson.
The English defender began the season as the fifth-choice for centre-back, but after an injury to Younes Kabuol, Dawson fought his way back into the regular lineup and has become one of the team’s most important defenders.
“Sometimes it isn’t easy, but you have to keep believing. We’re in a good position to go through, despite what some think.”
He continued by mentioning other instances in which the club prevailed against the odds, referring to the match against Lyon in which they were minutes away from elimination when Mousa scored a late goal.
Despite being contenders for a top-four place in the Premier League, the Spur have yet to win a road game in Europe this season.
“We have great players and we have belief in them and we go into the game with ambition,” he said.
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“You ride your luck sometimes but we’re still in the hat and still fighting.”
Cardiff City owner Vincent Tan is hopeful the club can become an established Premier League side after promotion was secured on Tuesday
The Welsh outfit drew 0-0 with Charlton at the Cardiff City Stadium to ensure they will play top-flight football next season for the first time in 51 years.
In completes a fairytale turnaround for the Bluebirds, who were in the Football League’s basement division just 13 years ago and have come close to going out of business due to significant debts.
Millionaire Malaysian businessman Tan can claim much of the credit for their revival after injecting more than £60million into the club over recent seasons.
The 61-year-old praised boss Malky Mackay for his achievements this campaign and has immediately set his sights on establishing City as a Premier League force.
“It’s a great feeling,” Tan told Sky Sports. “I think we have to strategise how we stay there for a long, long time. We have to do a lot of thinking.
“Hopefully we don’t have to spend too much, but Cardiff have waited for 51 years, so this great. I’m very happy that Malaysia helps to contribute to this.
“I think Malky is a fantastic manager. We work along very well and we have a great working relationship.
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“I’ve a lot of respect for him and he has a lot of respect for me. It’s a great mutual relationship.”