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Carling Cup: Chelsea through to SF

December 20th 2007 05:00

Chelsea are through to face Everton in the semi-finals of the Carling Cup after knocking out Liverpool at the quarter-final stages overnight.

With Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez showing little intent in a starting line-up that included reserve keeper Charles Itandje, youngsters Jack Hobbs and Leiva Lucas and a substitutes bench missing captain Steven Gerrard and Spanish striker Fernando Torres, it was always going to be an up-hill struggle against a near full strength Chelsea side.

Chelsea's class and experience prevailed in the second-half courtesy of strikes from Frank Lampard and Andriy Shevchenko to seal a 2-0 win for the London club.

The match was marred by a moment of madness from England striker Peter Crouch who was red-carded for a two-footed lunge on Mikel John Obi shortly after Lampard's opener in the 59th minute.

Crouch will now miss Liverpool's home clash with Portsmouth and the visits to Derby and Manchester City over the festive period.

In the other draw, bitter London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham will battle it out for a place in the final.

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Posted By: charles - Category: Carling Cup, English football news, Chelsea, Liverpool

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EPL: L'pool 0 - 1 Man Utd; Arsenal 1 - 0 Chelsea

December 17th 2007 06:30

Sat, Dec 15:

Birmingham 1 - 1 Reading
Derby 0 - 1 Middlesbrough
Man City 4 - 2 Bolton
Portsmouth 0 - 1 Tottenham
Sunderland 1 - 1 Aston Villa
West Ham 0 - 2 Everton
Wigan 5 - 3 Blackburn
Fulham 0 - 1 Newcastle

Sun, Dec 16:

Liverpool 0 - 1 Man Utd
Arsenal 1 - 0 Chelsea

Sun, Dec 16:

The Premiership 'Big Four' went head to head over the weekend with Manchester United and Arsenal coming out on top with 1-0 victories over Liverpool and Chelsea respectively.

Despite dominating the match at Anfield, Liverpool failed to make any in-roads pass the United defence and were made to pay when Carlos Tevez pounced on a Ryan Giggs corner to fire home the winner late in the first half.

The win for Sir Alex Ferguson's men has left United nine points in front of their fierce north-west rivals.

Meanwhile at the Emirates, Arsenal captain William Gallas made his former club pay by heading home the only goal of the game on the stroke of half-time. The Frenchman cashed in on an uncharacteristic error from Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech to give his side victory and a six-point cushion over their London rivals.

The match of the weekend - an eight-goal thriller - took place on Saturday between Wigan and Blackburn at the JJB stadium.

Marcus Bent and Roque Santa Cruz both completed hat-tricks in a pulsating match which saw Wigan throw away a three-goal lead before eventually overcoming 10-man Blackburn 5-3 to end their 14-match winless run.

In other matches, wins were recorded for Middlesbrough, Man City, Tottenham, Everton and Newcastle.

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Posted By: charles - Category: EPL results, English football news, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United

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EPL Title Contest?

August 22nd 2007 23:34

Now that three rounds of Premiership action have passed, full of surprises and curious situations, the big question of who will obtain the title this year gets even harder to answer a view on the performance of the top teams in the first rounds would make this task a little bit easier.

Chelsea are the current favourites of the bookies(2.10), but to be frank I'm not impressed with them. Pizzaro, Malouda and co are yet to show their capabilities, and they are quiality players, but this season I think that the problem for Chelsea won't be up front, they have too many top-class players there, and in case they don't play against Liverpool for instance(sorry but Chelsea were so plain and without any ideas against Benitez's boys last week), they will score enough. The issue is that they concede too many goals. It's not the pragmatic Chelsea of the last seasons, who scored one or two but didn't allow the opponents to respond(it was trendy to bet 1-0 or 2-0 correct score when Chelsea are at home). Now we have 3-2 at home against NEWCOMERS of Birmingham, 1-2 away to Reading and 1-1 at Anfield. The first two wins were very hard, and basically for a team with Chelsea's likes, such matches are supposed to be easier. And the draw against Liverpool was a gift from the referee, Liverpool were the winners there.

Liverpool is the team that is about to be the new participant in the pursue of the title. After spending more than 50 million euro for players like Torres, Babel and Voronin Benitez has no excuses now. Previous seasons Liverpool made more than enough for the capabilities of their squad, but now they have to fight for the Premiership, 18 years without a title is just too much. Benitez will put into action his famous rotation principle, that enabled Valencia some years ago to win two times La Liga. Still, we haven't seen enough from Liverpool, but judging from the performance against Chelsea,
their style remains the old one - pragmatic, deadly tactical and disciplined football. But now that they have a variety of performers, Merseysiders could be more stable and endanger not only the Champions League contenders as before, but Chelsea and Manchester United as well.
The odds for Liverpool to win Outright were 6.50 in the beggining of the season, and now are 4.50, which speaks for itself.
Keep eyes on the Sunderland - Liverpool match in the weekend, I consider it a very important one for Liverpool's self-confidence after the blow against Chelsea.

Manchester United hit a bad streak in the first rounds. 2 draws and 1 lost in a row are results that we haven't seen from the Red Devils in the last two seasons. But it would be an airy statement that United are out. They just need one win to boost their confidence, and good results will flow. I guess, Tottenham this Sunday will be the first victims, though this promises to be a very tight fixture. Yes, it will be more difficult without injured Rooney and the suspended Ronaldo, but a team with the likes of United must be able to cope with such situations. My personal prediction is that United will bounce back in the next rounds and we will witness a three-sided fight for the title this season. A really intriguing one.

Arsenal, the other member of 'the big four', don't have the capability and the squad for the title. No offence to their fans, but this is reality and now without Henry it's even harder.

Some said that Tottenham will be able to intrude in big four's hegemony, but they still are quite unstable. And I'm really puzzled why did Jol buy Darren Bent for so much money, instead of strengthening his defensive line with experienced backs. So now he has around 5 forwards, but if a defender is injured(like skipper Ledley King is now), defensive problems occur.
Sorry, just UEFA for Tottenham, or the maximum is a fight with Arsenal for the 4th position.

So, perhaps the most intriguing season in the best league in the world is in front of us.

For previews and stuff before the rounds, see my b-log

Opinions are welcome!

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Posted By: Nikolay Spassov - Category: English football news, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham

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