Football Premiership

So who will win the title? Man Utd or Chelsea?

Who will get relegated? Bolton? Fulham? Birmingham or Reading?

Man Utd are still favourites to retain their title with only a victory at Wigan and the title stays at Old Trafford for at least another year. Its out of Chelsea’s hands and all they can hope for is United to slip up. Wigan did pull of a surprise at Stamford Bridge last month with a precious point which has helped them crawl out of the relegation zone, a repeat of the same will be a much appreciated from the West Londoners.

Down the other end, its between 4 teams, although Bolton looks to be safe after their home win over Sunderland on Saturday. They have a better goal difference than Reading and Birmingham the 2 teams who can effective catch them. Bolton face Chelsea in the final game, with Chelsea needing the points, all Bolton must make sure is that they dont get trashed.

Birmingham can effectively still survive with a draw if both Reading and Fulhma lost due to their superior goal difference, however if both Reading and Fulham win then Birmingham will be relegated.

Its also likely that Reading will be related if Fulham win at Portsmouth due to a better goal difference.

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Croatia have announced their squad for the European championships and coach Slavan Bilic is backing his team to make a major impact at Euro 2008 in June.

The full squad includes two Premiership-based players, Vedran Corluka of Manchester City and Portsmouth’s Niko Kranjcar, with Tottenham-bound Luka Modric included.
Goalkeepers: Stipe Pletikosa (Spartak Moscow), Vedran Runje (RC Lens), Mario Galinovic (Panathinaikos)

Defenders: Vedran Corluka (Manchester City), Dario Simic (AC Milan), Robert Kovac (Borussia Dortmund), Josip Simunic (Hertha Berlin), Dario Knezevic (Livorno), Hrvoje Vejic (Tom Tomsk)

Midfielders: Danijel Pranjic (Heerenveen), Darijo Srna (Shakhtar Donetsk), Niko Kovac (Salzburg), Luka Modric (Tottenham), Niko Kranjcar (Portsmouth), Jerko Leko (Monaco), Ivan Rakitic (Schalke 04), Ognjen Vukojevic (Dinamo Zagreb), Nikola Pokrivac (Monaco)

Forwards: Mladen Petric (Borussia Dortmund), Ivica Olic (Hamburg SV), Ivan Klasnic (Werder Bremen), Igor Budan (Parma), Nikola Kalinic (Hajduk Split)

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Premier League leaders have registered on Sunday their third draw in a row. This time they traveled for an EPL game against Wigan Athletic. The game ended only with a goalless draw and The Gunner endangered their top spot in the EPL. With Manchester United left to play against Bolton and only 2 points left ahead of the Red Devils, the situation is quite complicated for Arsene Wenger and his boys.

It all started with Eduardo da Silva’s injury against Birmingham. Arsenal’s striker suffered a horrific injury within that game an The Gunners seem not able to recover from the shock. The clash with Birmingham ended 2-2. It followed a home draw, 1-1 against Aston Villa, with Bendtner equalizing in the last seconds of the added time. Finally yesterday’s draw against Wigan Athletic might result in losing the lead of the Premier League, if second placed Manchester United defeat Bolton on Wednesday.

Arsene Wenger blamed this situation on several reasons. Starting with a saw called conspiracy against The Gunners, that should stop them from winning the EPL to tiredness because of the difficult Champions League clash against AC Milan. Wenger attacked the referee’s that in his opinion disadvantaged his team several times. Arsenal’s manager got an unexpected support from his main rivals, more precisely, from Man Utd’s superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who blaimed the EPL referee’s of allowing harsh tackles that endanger the tehnical players of the league.

On the other side, as mentioned above The Gunners obtained a great performance in the Champions League, managing to eliminate the defending trophy holders, AC Milan with a 2-0 win at the San Siro. It’s a difficult stage of the season as Arsenal fight both for the Premier League and the Champions League. Their luck is that Man Utd is in the same situation. I think that the team that will manage better to balance their energy between this two major competitions, will also win the Premier League title this year.

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Great week for the Premier League teams in the second leg of the Champions League last 16 round. Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea have made it through to the quarterfinals after some great performances. Liverpool is yet to play Inter, in Milano, as their game has been scheduled for next Tuesday, because AC Milan and Inter share the same stadium. The San Siro couldn’t host two Champions League games on back-to-back days.

Arsenal managed to defeat Champions League title holders, AC Milan, at the San Siro after a great game on Tuesday night. Goals signed by Cesc Fabregas and Emanuel Adebayor assured a 2-0 away win and the tickets for the next round. Arsene Wenger’s team confirmed their great 2007-08 season.

Also on Tuesday night, Manchester United won at the Old Trafford against Olympique Lyon with 1-0. Cristiano Ronaldo scored of course and sent his team to the next round after the first leg 1-1 draw in Lyon.

You can watch the video football highlights for all Champions League games played this week. Chelsea are the third team from the EPL that advanced into the last 8. A comfortable 3-0 win at the Stamford Bridge ended all hopes for Olympiakos to continue writing history in the Champions League.

England and the Premier League could send 4 teams out of the last 8 remaining teams in the Champions League, if Liverpool will be able to maintain their two goals advantage over Inter Milan. The game can be followed online trough the peer-to-peer live streams. Free live online football is available. The game will start next Tuesday at 20.45 CET. Liverpool seem prepared for the event as they just destroyed West Ham United yesterday. The Cormorants won 4-0 at the Anfield Road. Congratulations to the Premier League football for this nice performance!

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Full draw:

Blackburn v Birmingham
Reading v Liverpool
Manchester United v Coventry
Tottenham v Middlesbrough
Hull v Chelsea
Blackpool v Southend
West Ham v Plymouth
Arsenal v Newcastle
Luton v Charlton
Manchester City v Norwich
Sheffield United v Morecambe
Sheffield Wednesday v Everton
Fulham v Bolton
Burnley v Portsmouth
Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest or Leicester
West Brom v Cardiff.

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Manchester United narrowly beat Spurs 1-0 at Old Trafford and all the talk on this game will be about the penalty which wasn’t given and also the wonder strike by Nani. It was a great goal from Nani, all of 30 yards which beat Paul Robinson but before the goal Spurs in my opinion should have been awarded a penalty, but as we know you just don’t get penalties at Old Trafford. The last penalty given to an away team at Old Trafford was to Bolton a few years back and that was when Manchester United were 3-0 up.
If we look at the reply slowly, you could say that the ball did hit abit of the chest of Wes Brown, but from first impression the ball looks like it has has hit the ar and prevented a goal. I cant believe the referee or the linesman hasn’t given it.

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This week must be remembered for the refereeing deciions which cost both Liverpool and Fulham vital points. Rob Styles made an incredible decision to award Chelsea a penalty which Frank Lampard converted to level the match at 1-1. Steve Finnan was judged to have made contact with Malouda but in fact it was the Frenchman who went into Finnan after attempting to dunny the ball through Didier Drogba. The decison shocked the whole of Anfield including the Chelsea players. Since then Styles have been removed from the next lot of fixtures and have also admitted in making a mistake which could have changed the outcome of a very important game.
The second referring mistake was at Craven Cottage, a last minute David Healy effort which clearly crossed the line was pushed out by the goalkeeper, both linesman and referring failed to spot this and costed Fulham a point. This adds further pressure in the fact we need technology installed. I do not see any implications in have goal line techonology in place.
The rest of the premiership we saw Man City maintaining their 100% record beating rivals Man Utd 1-0 at Eastlands. Its the best start of Man City in god knows how long and Sven appears to have the magic touch whilst Man Utd must be worried that they are already 5 points behind Chelsea with Rooney and Ronaldo missing for at least the next 2 games.

A Mark Noble penalty gave West Ham their first 2 points of the season against Birmingham. Newcastle and Aston Villa shared the points with a 0-0 score at St James Park. Portsmouth continued their good form and beat struggling Bolton 3-1. Bolton have now losttheir last 3 games and are already in deep trouble. Tottenham bounced back from bad start to the season with a comfortable 4-0 victory over newly promoted Derby. Derby were never a match and the win may have saved Martin Jol his job. Another newly side Sunderland lost 3-0 away to Wigan and finally Reading overcame Everton at home with a Stephen Hunt goal.

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The first week of the Premiership has been completed and plenty has gone on.
Lets start of with the champions, which whom have not had the best of starts to the campaign. Reading filded out a man marking system to virtually every Msnchester United body and United just had no way through, although a couple of clear chances were created, the injury to Wayne Rooney meant that there is no out and out striker to take the opportunities. Rooney will be out for about 2 months and a blow to United with only new signing Carlos Tevez the recognised striker. United were further hit when C.Ronaldo was sent off against Portsmouth in the 1-1 draw down at Fratton Park on Wednesday. He will now miss the next 3 games which includes important fixtures against Manchester City, Spurs and Sunderland. 2 draws in the opening 2 games of the season leave sthem trailing the leading pack by 4 points by nothing to be worried about, i’m sure they will get that back.
Chelsea in the other hand have been conceding without John Terry, 2 goals in 2 goals, lucky their 433 formation is looking good and have helped them achieve maximum points so far. Malouda looks an excellent buy and SWP have also played his part. Liverpool and Arsenal have both only played once so far due to Champions League commitments and both successfully came through their games with 3 points. Liverpool was at Villa park will Fernando Torres made his debut and impressed with his contribution and also his partnership with Dirk Kuyt. Arsenal in the other hand post-Henry era trailed 1-0 to Fulham for long perios of the game but were eventual 2-1 winners, they seem to be gelling well as a team and most people have wriiten off their chances of a place in teh top 4 but i think they will impress this season.
Theer are so many teams the are all capable of a European place this season, Portsmouth, Newcastle, Everton, Blackburn and Man City have all had good starts. Spurs in the other hand have made a dreadful start especially with their massive spending other the summer, it doesn’t help with 7 defenders out injured but more was expected from them.
Derby , Birmgham and Sunderland the newly promoted clubs have had decent starts . Birmingham and Derby are off the mark with a point with Sunderland the better out of the three with 4 points, Michael Choppr’s last minute goal against Spurs gave them all 3 points in the opening fixture of the season.
The season is well under way and the first big head-to-head match of the season, Liverpool Vs Chelsea is already upon us.

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The pre-season has flown by and it only seemed like yesterday that Carlos Tevez scored that goal at Old Trafford which kept West Ham in the Premiership. Will the South American has finally secured his move to Manchester United and could make his debut this weekend. It’s going to be such an exciting seasonand i know that is what is said every year but what is different is the big spending and its not just the big guns which have splashed the cash. Many people have predicted that Tottenham will join the so-called big four and then there is a host of teams targetting European places.

My Predictions -

1. Manchester United
2. Liverpool
3. Chelsea
4. Arsenal
5. Tottenham
6. Portsmouth
7. Everton
8. Blackburn
9. West Ham
10.Newcastle
11.Man City
12.Aston Villa
13.Bolton
14.Reading
15.Middlesborough
16.Fulham
17.Sunderland
18.Wigan
19.Birmingham
20.Derby

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Liverpool have unveiled pictures of their new stadium which they plan to move into in 2010.

Its a 60,000 all seater stadium, which is part of a £300m investment by the club and has the ability to increase capacity to more than 75,000.

The picturses which has been released so far shows a completly uniue arena and looks like a world class development. Anfield has been such an important and traditional venue and this design includes a single tier stand with a capacity of 18,000, which hopefully will replicate the atmosphere of Anfield’s famous Kop.
It is absolutely fundamental  the Anfield atmosphere is kept and theregore this design  tries to recreate the Kop atmosphere. It does look spectacular and there isnt’t a stadium like it out there like this.

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