Roberto Mancini and Kenny Dalglish go head-to-head on Tuesday as Man City entertain Liverpool and we've got a fantastic free bet offer to add to the excitement. Place a pre-match bet on the Man City v Liverpool game and we will give you a free In-Play bet to the same stake on the big match. To qualify for your free In-Play bet, simply place a bet before kick-off, then once the game starts place another bet on any In-Play market. If your FIRST In-Play bet loses we will refund this stake, up to the same value as your largest pre-match bet (max £50*). As always, there'll be plenty to choose from with over 60 In-Play markets available throughout the game including Next Goal, Match Goals, Total Corners, Half-Time Result, Full-Time Result and much more. With an extensive range of pre-match and In-Play markets and a fantastic free bet offer, bet365 is the number one place for all your Soccer betting. About bet365 bet365 is one of the world’s largest online gambling groups with over six million customers worldwide. bet365 offers a Sports Betting experience that’s unrivalled. The Group employs over 1,700 people and is the UK’s seventh largest private company. In the 2010 eGaming Review Awards, bet365 was named Operator of the Year and Casino Operator of the Year, as well as receiving the Best Website Performance award. The company came top in eGaming Review’s Annual Power 50. bet365 were named Affiliate Programme of the Year in the iGaming Business Affiliate Awards 2011. bet365’s Affiliates Operations Manager received the Best Affiliate Manager award. Tags Liverpool football betting

Manchester United 1:6 Manchester City Scorelines don't come much more amazing than Sunday's Mancunian derby, but was there really much reason to celebrate, however many records tumbled at Old Trafford? With a few days' recuperation from that shellshock of a final score, can the result be deemed a welcome riposte to or even wholescale power shift from the hegemony of moneybags Chelsea and Manchester United, or another symptom of the obscene, out-of-control spending in the English top division which is upsetting its natural order of competition? Watching Fergie's nose rubbed into the dirt certainly had its charms for those of us who do not buy into the 'Glory glory Man United' hype machine, as the Scot's lazily applied moniker of 'football genius' suddenly hung by a thread after such a an utter pasting. And it was not unpleasant to see City's supporters for once get the upper hand on their storied and hitherto more monied rivals. The Blues have played Torino to Juventus, Espanol to Barcelona for so many long and grueling years, that anyone's sense of fairness would not begrudge them a moment in the sun. For my whole life Man City, who last lifted the Championship in 1968 and whose last taste of glory was the 1970 Cup Winners' Cup before last season's FA Cup win, have seemed cursed to underachieve. Even when they looked like winning the FA Cup in 1981, their goalscorer Tommy Hutchinson then put through his own net to let Tottenham back in to triumph, after a replay . A sense of injustice turned into angry frustration among some fans, a similar phenomenon one can witness at Cardiff City or Leeds, but after an endless string of disappointments, along came rich men from the East bearing gifts. David could fear Goliath no more and City had arrived. Yet the underdog tag which won City sympathy is fast evaporating in the face of such a merciless spending spree by the Abu Dhabian owners. Just take a look at the Blues' winning team. Whilst five were Englishmen, only one had come through the City youth system (Micah Richards). United by comparison fielded eight Brits throughout the 90 minutes, two of whom had been developed in-house. But City's foreign legion surely eclipsed United's, whose overseas stars comprised Anderson, David De Gea, Patrice Evra, Javier Hernandez and Nani. Compare that to the ambrosial cornucopia of Sergio Aguero, Mario Balotelli, Gael Clichy, Edin Dzeko, Alexsandar Kolarov, Vincent Kompany, Samir Nasri and Yaya Touré, plus the Premier League's top entertainer of the hour, David Silva. United had been outspent off the field and thus outgunned on the pitch. With the Arab owners pouring money into a new academy complex and showing no signs of acknowledging any recession, City will soon spend their way to the heights of England, Europe and the world. With no restriction on salaries, money does not just talk in the Premier League, it bellows. The pyrrhic element to this famous win will tell in the signal it has sent to soccer's governing bodies. If the Blues maintain their unerring march to European conquest, UEFA and FIFA will be forced to act and impose control on clubs' spending as the playing field will have become too tilted. City's devastating victory shows the Premier League is absurdly top-heavy, listing like the Mary Rose into the waters of the Solent. There is no pretence of a 20-team competition and a gulf now exists even amongst the top teams. On any given Sunday, to plagiarise a term from American Football, Man U, the reigning champions, should not lose 6-1 at home to anyone. What made it so shocking was that it seemed no aberration, no one-off. Does it have to be like this? No. Later that night some miles to the south, the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers fought out a much closer NFL game at Wembley. In America, that well-known communist regime, a salary cap keeps its football field level, and the worse teams get first pick of the best young players. The more the Premier League continues with no regulation, the more meaningless games like Sunday's will become. Bring on the UEFA Financial Fair Play rules. Doubtless some new fans in Asia will be sporting blue shirts instead of their elder siblings' red ones, but there was a time when you supported a team for reasons other than it was far richer than the others, who are clearly finding it increasingly impossible to compete. With this elephant in the room, Sunday's thrashing of United was less proof that the Premier League is unpredictable and competitive, but that its free-market model is in serious need of financial regulation. For it seemed less a case of one club outplaying another through superior football than one simply outspending another, in an increasingly frightening way. (c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile Tags World Cup Pens World Cup Posters Euro 2012 football

Place a pre-match bet on the Man Utd v Man City game with  bet365 and they will give you a free In-Play bet to the same stake on the big match. To qualify for your free In-Play bet, simply place a bet before kick-off at bet365, then once the game starts place another bet on any In-Play market. If your FIRST In-Play bet loses  bet365 will refund this stake, up to the same value as your largest pre-match bet. With a great range of pre-match markets on offer and over 60 In-Play markets available throughout the game, you can make the most of this exciting Premier League clash with bet365. About bet365 bet365 is one of the world’s largest online gambling groups with over six million customers worldwide. bet365 offers a Sports Betting experience that’s unrivalled. The Group employs over 1,700 people and is the UK’s seventh largest private company. In the 2010 eGaming Review Awards, bet365 was named Operator of the Year and Casino Operator of the Year, as well as receiving the Best Website Performance award. The company came top in eGaming Review’s Annual Power 50. bet365 were named Affiliate Programme of the Year in the iGaming Business Affiliate Awards 2011. bet365’s Affiliates Operations Manager received the Best Affiliate Manager award.

Manchester City have revealed plans for an 80-acre training centre in the shadow of their Eastlands Stadium. The Blues, riding high in second place in the Premier League, are looking to consolidate their arrival in soccer's rich list, a new era begun when the Abu Dhabi United investment group purchased them three years ago. Since then a galaxy of stars have arrived in the blue half of Manchester, including Robinho, Edin Dzeko, Mario Balotelli, Carlos Tevez, Samir Nasri and Sergio Aguero. City ended their 35-year trophy drought by winning the FA Cup last season, and finished third in the league to qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time. With an intriguing all-Manchester tussle for the title brewing, City have a serious chance of becoming English champions for the first time since 1968. With the imminent UEFA Financial Fair Play Rules, the spending spree cannot go on, so today club submitted a planning application for what it hopes will be a factory of free stars. As well as four pitches for first-team training and up to 400 youngsters will be able to learn their trade at its new facility, which would include a 7,000-seat stadium. Outside England, United are usually referred to as 'Manchester', but with the sudden surge of the Citizens, all that will have to change. (c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile Tags World Cup Pens World Cup Posters Euro 2012 football

Bert Trautmann's incredible life story is covered in the book Trautmann's Journey: From Hitler Youth to FA Cup Legend by Catrine Clay (published by Yellow Jersey Press). The book can be purchased through Amazon, costing £16.99. One lucky Soccerphile reader can win a copy of the book, signed by the author, by answering this question. Bert Trautmann broke which part of his anatomy in the 1956 FA Cup Final? a) Foot b) Neck c) Ankle Contact us to email your answer with the title "Trautmann" as the subject of the email Read more about Bert Trautmann in his own words Tags Bert Trautmann Manchester City

The season may have only just ended but there has already been a flurry of activity behind the scenes at many of Europe's top clubs. In recent years many of the biggest summer deals have been completed in the closing days and even hours of the transfer window. Yet with more and more clubs being taken over by billionaire businessmen there seems to be an urgency to get new players in while they're still available. Premier League newcomers Birmingham City are the latest team to get involved in the action, after signing Ecuador striker Christian Benitez for a club record fee. It's unlike to be the last transfer record that is broken this summer.

“There was total confusion. Not one of them had a clear idea of what was going on, not a clue.” Kaka’s damning words confirmed the egg is stuck fast to the face of the blue half of Manchester, following a shockingly public humiliation which made City the laughing stock of the soccer world and a source of overflowing schadenfreude from Old Trafford to Olduvai. But are City really to blame for missing such an apparently open goal so embarrassingly? According to La Gazzetta dello Sport , Italy’s ineffable soccer daily, it was Bosco Leite, Kaka’s father & Adriano Galliani, the Milan Chief Executive previously in favour of the sale, who pulled the plug.

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