Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has backed Sunday's opponents Chelsea to once again be one of his team's closest challengers for the Premier League title. United are 6/1 with Bet 365 to win 1-0 at Old Trafford and customers can get a free In-Play bet for the game this weekend. Andre Villas-Boas' side have failed to impress in the league so far this season, although they have taken ten points from their first four matches, and are 11/1 to beat the league leaders 1-0 on Sunday. Ferguson said: "They will be there at the end of the season, there is no doubt about that. At the moment, of course, the two Manchester teams are enjoying the publicity but in the background lurks Chelsea. They don't need the publicity. They will be enjoying being out of the profile at the moment." Danish keeper Anders Lindegaard is determined to continue to keep the pressure on Manchester United's currently recognised No.1, David de Gea. Despite the Dane's impressive display against Benfica in the Champions League on Wednesday evening, United boss Sir Alex Ferguson insists De Gea will be back for Sunday's all-important Premier League clash against Chelsea. United are 6/1 with Bet 365 to win 1-0 at Old Trafford and customers can get a free In-Play bet for the game this weekend. However, the Spaniard's shaky start to his United career, coupled with Lindegaard's emergence, could provide Ferguson with an interesting dilemma. Lindegaard says: "I learned a lot from Edwin van der Sar and I have confidence in my own ability. I came to Manchester United for the challenge to be the first-choice goalkeeper."

Landing at Hong Kong airport this week, I expected to be greeted by adverts for the next generation of electronics, or maybe banks, or cars. The sight of Stuart Downing in an Aston Villa kit on a bilboard was a little surprising. As another recent addition to Dalglish's Liverpool squad, Downing was an unfortunate selection by advertisers of the Barclays Asia Trophy. The 2011 version of the biannual four-team event involves his former club 1982 European champions Aston Villa, local up-and-coming champions Kitchee, 'superclub' Chelsea, and (as proof of the pull of the 'EPL', as well as some of it's more prestigious members) Blackburn Rovers. Although as Rovers fans would be quick to highlight, the Lancashire club have at least won the Barclays Premier League, something Liverpool are yet to achieve (at the time of writing) and Aston Villa could only dream of. Despite the popularity of the English game, I was able to go directly from airport to hostel to stadium and purchase a £20 ticket. Meeting up with friends local and Liverpudlian, we endured two games at the Hong Kong stadium that typified preseason football. Aston Villa and Blackburn did their best to maintain a goaless scoreline, before Daren Bent claimed the game's only goal. Playing for the right to play the victors and avoid their conquest in Saturday's final / play off, Kitchee then played host to Chelsea. Villa-Boas' men strolled to a four-goal victory, with double Didier Drogba strikes sanwiched between goals from Lampard and Sturridge. Substitute Fernando Torres received a warm reception by the majority of the crowd, but failed to find the net. Aston Villa and Chelsea are likely to face a more useful test of their credentials and fitness on Saturday's tournament decider. © Dr Joel Rookwood & Soccerphile Tags World Cup Pens World Cup Posters Hong Kong football

Tonight against Birmingham City at Stamford Bridge, Fernando Tor res may score his first goal for Chelsea. Sooner or later, the £50 million pound-man must break his duck and s h ow his new employers what he is really made of. Yet thus far, his transfer has been a near-disaster. No goals in twelve games, Torres has failed to gel with his new teammates while his record-breaking arrival has seen Chelsea dumped out of Europe and fall away in the title race. Torres clearly can cut the mustard, and was probably the world's best striker in 2008, but has not been the same player for the last season and a half. He was not firing on all cylinders in South Africa and looked listless for Liverpool in his final year there. A decline seems to have set in from the day Spain lost 0-2 to the USA in the 2009 Confederations Cup semi-final. The Spaniard now seems to have lost his exquisite first touch and his shooting sights are askew. Not only has he yet to find the net despite benefiting from one of the best attacks around, he has not looked even close to scoring. His aim is cock-eyed while he is struggling, in the vernacular, to trap a bag of cement. What is going on? Nobody really seems to know. Torres is hardly past it at age 27, won the World Cup last summer and has not yet forgotten scoring the winning goal in the Euro 2008 final. He is a happily-married man who is known for staying at home with his family instead of hitting the town. He is fabulously rich. So why can't Fernando suddenly play football? Confidence is the old chestnut of an excuse for a lack of form or a run of good form. It is true, the more you win the more you believe in yourself and vice-versa, but Torres is not facing relegation. Once he scores one, many are claiming, the floodgates will open to a tide of goals. But the C-word clearly has a big role to play in football. It must explain to a great extent the almost perennial discrepancy between home and away form for a start. And how many times do you hear a team accused of showing the other 'too much respect' or not 'believing in themselves enough'? I once interviewed the Japanese international goalkeeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi, and although English was not his strongest language, I was struck by how much he mentioned the word confidence - a part of the English footballing lexicon all right. What is keeping Torres nervous? Is the problem the lack of a Spanish-speaking legion at Chelsea like there was at Liverpool, is it tension with a coach who might have been forced to sign and play him by his chairman (shades of Jose Mourinho and Andriy Shevchenko), is it famil y issues or perhaps an inability to adapt to a new home, teammates, formation and playing system? If Fernando has left his confidence in Liverpool, who can help him find it again in West London? Clubs have been using psychologists for some years, although no-one seems to have analysed their efficacy in terms of results. It is normal for motivational speakers to address the squad and for trained specialists to encourage them to visualise success and fill their heads with positive thoughts. Psychology is still a controversial field in some scientific circles, although in its popular form it has spurred a giant self-help industry, tying in nicely with the American way of pioneering self-reliance. Although as a US international footballer once told me, "You can have all the confidence in the world but if you don't have that ability in the first place..." In the past, managers were motivators alone, but with managers morphing into first-team coaches, clubs employ specialists in several fields. That same footballer told me what his club really needed was a stroke of luck, a break that would grant them a much-needed win to spur them on. Perhaps Fernando just needs to hear that first thwack of the onion bag and he will soon be his old self again. He has barely half a dozen games left this campaign in which to find his shooting boots, so perhaps a summer free of tournaments and a nice long rest will do the trick. If next season he is still playing like a pub player instead of a £50m man, it really will be a case for a Mr. Sherlock Holmes. (c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile Tags World Cup Pens World Cup Posters Euro 2012 football

Bridge too far? If people thought that the John Terry scandal was to be the most stringent assessment of Fabio Capello's reign of the English national team, they obviously hadn’t counted on a World Cup-threatening injury to Ashley Cole this week. Capello, already a media darling with the tabloids, was roundly applauded by all sections of the press for how he reacted to the allegations of Terry's dalliance with the ex of England team-mate Wayne Bridge. Like Sepp Blatter, Capello was expected to turn all Silvio Berlusconi, shrug his shoulders and privately slap the back of his humbled skipper. It's what managers all across the Mediterranean would have done according to the irrepressible Fifa chief. But the Italian didn’t. He waited, pondered, most likely sought the counsel of FA bigwigs and even gave Terry a whole 12 minutes of air time before quietly explaining that the Chelsea captain's dreams of holding aloft the World Cup trophy this June were history. So, that done, Capello's stocks with the English public rose further still. Fast forward 72 hours, however, and what had seemed a crisis averted was starting to look like one approaching. Cole, Capello's first choice left full-back for South Africa and one of the most improved players under Blues coach Carlo Ancelotti this season, broke his left ankle in a challenge with Everton's Landon Donovan and has undergone immediate surgery, placing his World Cup participation in serious doubt. And guess who's been Cole's automatic replacement over the past eight or so years: Wayne Bridge. Although not as dynamic going forward as the former Arsenal man, Bridge last deputised for Cole in England's previous international game – against Brazil in November – and also played three times during World Cup qualifying when Cole was absent. The 29-year-old Manchester City defender has been regularly involved in England squads since his debut in 2002 and is without question Cole's natural replacement despite the claims of Aston Villa's Stephen Warnock and Everton's Leighton Baines. But Capello's dilemma over involving Bridge in his build-up to the World Cup has intensified this week with Cole's injury. Even before the news of Terry's infidelity became public knowledge this month, the Italian coach must have already pondered whether to take a second specialist left-back to South Africa in his 23-man squad. Would Bridge be required in the finals? What could he offer as a back-up squad member? Remember, Capello will already be taking Gareth Barry, who has previously and could in an emergency fill in, not to mention Matthew Upson and the increasingly versatile James Milner, who finished in the left-back position against Belarus last October after Bridge went off injured. Then the news of Terry's affair with Bridge's former girlfriend and the mother of his child breaks. Capello knows he wants to ditch Terry as captain, but dropping him from the squad altogether in unthinkable. But could England's buoyant national team harmony be salvaged by quietly letting Bridge slip out of contention? Might it be best for all concerned if Bridge was conveniently overlooked in preference of Villa's in-form Warnock? Capello will select his squad for England's next international against Egypt on March 3 in a couple of weeks and with Bridge only just back in Manchester City's line-up after a two-month absence because of a knee injury, and Cole in fine form, he might have legitimately been able to leave Bridge's name off his list. And he still might, although the decision will be the truest test of Capello's mettle just three-and-a-half months out from England's World Cup opener against the United States on June 12. Bridge has not yet made known his feelings towards playing alongside Terry for the Three Lions, but he is committed to continuing for England according to club boss Roberto Mancini. And if there's any good news to come out of Cole's likely absence from his third World Cup it's that it might force an even quicker resolution to the row. Perhaps Terry, Bridge and Capello sitting down for a clear-the-air meeting sooner rather than later is the best resolution yet. Copyright © Soccerphile.com Tags Soccer News football

Liverpool have wrapped up their signing of Glen Johnson from Portsmouth. The lingering doubt, though, is how much of a role can arguably Britain’s finest full-back play in transforming Liverpool into Premiership champions. On last season’s form, Johnson is certainly England’s best full-back. His attacking raids invariably result in finer distribution than, say, Ashley Cole, he’s more trustworthy than Micah Richards and probably now edges a fully fit Gary Neville for his country’s No.2 shirt. Whether he is the best full-back in England, however, is a far more complex debate.

World Soccer News For week of 5/31 Bordeaux edge Marseille ten years later Just like ten years ago, Girondins de Bordeaux lifted the French championship ahead of Olympique Marseille, still cursed by that 1993 match-rigging scandal. On the last day of the championship, Marseille still had a fighting chance, in spite of lagging three points behind Bordeaux. The leaders had to visit the endangered Caen, who were certain to avoid relegation by winning all three points, and Marseille knew they would be the champions if Bordeaux lose and they defeat Valenciennes at home.

Take the adidas Chelsea Club Quiz to prove that you have what it takes to be the 12th man: cli.gs/1T7vVb Tags

Off-field, it was such a colourful week, England's 0-2 defeat to Spain , Fabio Capello's first as national team manager, was a mere footnote. Chelsea's firing of Luis Felipe Scolari and the tug-of-love for David Beckham between LA and AC were bigger news, but the Three Lions' defeat deserved more column inches. Unlike Steve McClaren, Capello has built a formidable team in a short time, a 4-1 away win in Croatia being the highlight so far, and unlike predecessor Sven-Goran Eriksson, in friendlies the Italian plays his strongest team for as much of the 90 minutes as he can. Seville was a reality check therefore on the perennially fantasizing English, many of whom are already entertaining hopes of lifting the World Cup in South Africa. Spain's technique was superior as always, but their organisation was too, while their formation had a fluidity England can only dream about. I cannot see how England, however improved they are under Capello, can defeat Spain in a couple of years without a big dollop of luck. It is impossible for England to develop a comparable mobility to give them that extra gear. The Three Lions can probably match anyone else in Europe, but there is also Brazil and Argentina to consider. Of course, myriad factors are brought to bear in a World Cup Finals, and it is a cup competition, with all that that entails. But on paper, England cannot triumph in 2010. *** England's biggest star and still the world's best-paid player, has unexpectedly become a tug-of-love case. David Beckham is owned by MLS but wanted by AC Milan. Clearly his American dream is a bust now he has re-established himself in the national team, an adventure he believed he had reached the end of in 2006. But having signed the deal of the century in Los Angeles, Becks belongs to the Galaxy, for now. So what we have is a football v business battle of ethics, not unlike Kaka's absurd dalliance with Manchester City. If football has values, Beckham must stay in Milan, full stop. But since the sport has got so deep into bed with the many-tentacled commercial world, Becks' attempts to extricate himself are proving painful. MLS had him as the cornerstone of their expansion plans and are now feeling jilted at the altar. "They clearly were looking at this as a football decision and we were looking at it as a football and business decision," Tim Leiweke, LA Chief Executive said. "I'm not sure they ever quite understood the magnitude of the losses the Galaxy and the league would have had to bear this season." But Beckham must part with his US team. To spurn or endanger the chance of playing in his last World Cup would be a disgrace and MLS must realise it is always better to move on an unhappy player, even if he is the world's most important one, before his moodiness affects the squad as a whole. *** At home, Chelsea fired their third coach in three years, despite still being in the Champions League, FA Cup and Champions League qualifying places. Scolari was given no money to spend in the January transfer window either, which makes Roman Abramovich's decision seem doubly cruel. The Russian has so far poured over £700m of his fortune into the West London club but this week the Blues also posted an annual loss of £66million, to add to the previous years' deficits of £75m, £140m and £88m. Abramovich has lost at least £12 billion in the last few months' economic slump, and on his fourth Chelsea manager in three years, one can only chuckle at Chief Executive Bruce Buck's description of his boss, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph in 2006: "He has a very good business sense, a very good feel for people." (c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting

World Soccer News for week of 12/9 Stamford Bridge curse for Chelsea Chelsea may have a magnificent away record with eight wins out of eight games, but their pathetic home form has allowed Liverpool to overtake them on top. Last weekend saw another away game and another easy 2-0 win at Bolton, which stretched Chelsea's victorous away run to eight this season. The goals difference is breathtaking: 21-1 for Luis Felipe Scolari's team. Adding the three last season's away matches, Chelsea's winning series is 11 games long with 26 goals in favour and one against. The last host to have avoided defeat against the Blues were Tottenham last March. The London derby ended in a dramatic 4-4 draw. But, at the one-time unconquerable Stamford Bridge Chelsea has been having hard time to collect points: only a meager 11 points have been won on the home turf, compared to the maximum 24 from their eight trips. What's worse, bitter rivals Manchester United and Liverpool snatched wins at the Bridge. Unless Chelsea spread the winning habit to the home ground, the title may remain out of their reach for the third season in the row. Still, some teams struggle at home even harder then Chelsea: Everton, a UEFA Cup candidate, has collected but six points out of 24 at Goodison. Luckily, no less than five away wins keep them on the European course. A fan attempts suicide as Vasco go down The famous Vasco da Gama have finally been relegated as they lost 0-2 to Vitoria on the last day of the Brazilian league, but the night in Rio may have been darker, as a desperate fan considered jumping from the terrace. No doubt all the ten million Vasco's fans are sad but none like a man named by the press simply as Fernando, who at the end of the match stepped to the edge of a terrace, shouting he would jump to the depth of 20 meteres. The dramatic scene was followed by the multitude until the firemen managed to prevent Fernando in his intentions. In the last moment, as the man was preparing the drop, a fireman grabbed one of his arms and tugged him to safety. - "He said his life had no sense now that Vasco went down," informed a Rio de Janeiro Fire brigade spokesman as Fernando was flown to a nearby hospital, presumably to the psychiatric ward. Vasco have become yet another big Brazilian club to be relegated, continuing the tradition maintained over the last decade by Fluminense, Botafogo, Gremio and finally Corinthians. In fact, Vasco will be the one to replace Corinthians in the second flight, as their Sao Paulo rivals were promoted back two weeks ago. Elsewhere in Brazil, Sao Paulo captured their third consecutive title, the sixth overall, after beating Goiás 2-0 away and keeping the three-point advantage over Grémio. Vedad Ibisevic seeking to outbomb Müller Vedad Ibisevic, the Bosnian international at the tiny Hoffenheim, has been enthralling the Bundesliga audiences week in week out with his goalscoring exploits. In the first 16 matches of the current season the 24-year old scored an amazing 18 goals and is topping the scorers charts as his team lead the Bundesliga level on points with the giants of Bayern. Although he is bound to attract interest from an array of the continent's big guns, Ibisevic has promised to remain faithful to Hoffenheim for another 18 months. "I am plesed the big clubs are after me, but I plan to stay at Hoffenheim even after the end of this season," said Ibisevic to the German electronic media after nearly helping his team hold Bayern at Allianz Arena last Friday. In the end Bayern won 2-1 thanks to Luca Toni's goal in injury time, but Ibisevic's prowess has been praised by the greatest gunner of them all, Gerd Műller. "I believe Ibisevic can break my 1972 record. He has an uncanny nose for goal in the penalty area and such gift cannot be learnt," said the Bundesliga's all-time top scorer, who netted 40 goals in 1971/72. Should he beat my mark, I'll be the first to congratulate him." Who on Earth is Marc Janko? Could anybody be more prolific than Ibisevic? Much more prolific? Well, you just have to look south of the German-Austrian border. Salzburg's Marc Janko has notched an astonishing 29 goals in no more than 19 appearances in the Austrian Bundesliga! Already in the first half of the season Janko (25) significantly improved his team's individual scoring record, held until now by Oliver Bierhoff, who scored 23 goals in the whole of the 1990/91 season. Janko has been particularly impressive since October 19th, when he netted 19 goals in eight games, about 2.2 per appearance. Curiously, he was never so efficient in front of goal, having scored just 18 goals in three full seasons with Salzburg before the current campaign. As late as last spring his form was so mediocre that he was not even picked for Austria's mediocre Euro squad. Nowadays, Janko's guns are blazing and there is no way of telling where his limits may be. Ronaldo Europe's best, Quaresma Italy's worst While Cristiano Ronaldo is celebrating an overwhelming win in the France Football's Golden Ball contest with 446 points ahead of Lionel Messi with 281 and Fernando Torres with 179, his fellow countryman Ricardo Quaresma received a different, slightly less influential award: the Golden Thrash Bin for the worst player in the Italian Serie A. The winger, whose transfer from Porto to Inter was one of the most eagerly awaited last summer, was given only nine caps by José Mourinho, incidentally his most fervent advocate until a few months ago. And he did not do much in those few matches either. The listeners to the Catersport program knew how to reward Quaresma for his displays, showering him with votes: 17,11% out of the 17,544 cast. The Silver Bin and the Bronze Bin went to the previous winners of the contest, Christian Vieri and Adriano, respectively. The rest of the top-ten include other illustrious names like Shevchenko, Dida and Tiago – all expensive and ultimately not all that useful for their current teams. Internacional suffer to win the Copa Sudamericana The Brazilians of Internacional conquered the Copa Sudamericana by beating Estudiantes La Plata by a 2-1 aggregate in a dramatic two-legged finals. Although the team from Porto Alegre carried a solid 1-0 advantage from the away match, the return game in Brazil turned out to be more emotional than expected. The Argentinians dominated and took a 1-0 lead through Alayes in the 65th minute, after which there was no more goals until the 90th minute. Since Internacional had Agenor sent off just before the end of the normal time, Estudiantes entered the extra-time as favourites, but the old adage saying that the outnumbered team fight harder turned out to be true one more time. The all-out offensive payed off to the Brazilians when Nilmar smashed the ball home from close range after it rebounded from the post. This was the first Brazilian win in the Copa Sudamericana, the Latin-american version of the UEFA Cup, after the competition was dominated by the Argentinians including last year's winner Arsenal of Sarandí. Copyright Ozren Podnar & Soccerphile Bet with Bet 365 World Soccer News Soccer betting tips Soccer Books & DVDs Tags Soccer News soccer football J-League K-League Betting

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Although the Carling Cup isn’t the most prestigious of competitions, with the football odds suggesting that a Premier League side is bound to lift the trophy. But when a side from outside the top flight defeats one of the best teams in the country you expect it to receive some extra media coverage.