Chelsea manager Guus Hiddink said he was aware that Eden Hazard swapped shirts with Paris Saint-Germain’s Angel Di Maria at half-time of their Champions League round-of-16 second-leg match and said “it should not be done.” PSG and Chelsea were drawing 1-1 on the night as the teams we into the break at Stamford Bridge, with the visitors holding the upper hand thanks to a 2-1 first-leg win when the teams met at the Parc des Princes two weeks ago. Hazard, who has been under pressure this season due to a lack of form, exchanged shirts with Argentine Di Maria as…
Author: David Folami
Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal gave an honest assessment of where his club and fierce rivals Liverpool stand ahead of their Europa League last-16 clash on Thursday. When asked about the state of English football, given United and Liverpool – historically two of Europe’s most significant clubs with eight European crowns between them – are playing in the Europa League, Van Gaal was frank in his thoughts but said the Premier League remained in a good place. “Other teams are playing in the Champions League. You are talking about Manchester United and Liverpool, we are happy to play in…
Pep Guardiola promised to focus solely on Bayern Munich in his final months in charge, but he apparently met the sporting director of future employers Manchester City in Amsterdam on Monday. Clad in a grey winter hat, thick sweater and carrying a rucksack, the 45-year-old Guardiola looked like a tourist as he was photographed entering a luxury hotel in Amsterdam on Monday morning. British tabloid The Mirror and Dutch newspaper Telegraaf both claim Guardiola met City’s director Txiki Begiristain, who was also photographed in Amsterdam on Monday, for two hours to discuss possible transfers. Guardiola is reported to have defender…
Zlatan Ibrahimovic warned that there was more to come from Paris Saint-Germain after he inspired them to victory over Chelsea in the Champions League last 16 on Wednesday. The Sweden striker scored one goal and made another as PSG won 2-1 at Stamford Bridge to complete a 4-2 aggregate win and reach the quarterfinals for a fourth successive season. Sent off as PSG eliminated Chelsea at the same stage last season, Ibrahimovic made his presence felt on his return to west London and vowed that the French champions were determined to make a mark on the competition. “I stayed more…
Diego Costa and Eden Hazard both sustained injuries as Chelsea crashed out of the Champions League to Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday, interim manager Guus Hiddink confirmed after the game. Costa, Chelsea’s goal-scorer, hobbled off shortly before Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored in the 67th minute to give PSG a 2-1 win on the night and complete a 4-2 aggregate victory. Hazard left the fray late on with a hip injury and was booed by a small number of Chelsea fans as he made his way over to the touchline to be replaced by Oscar. “We’ll see if there is big damage tomorrow…
English champions Chelsea face the challenge of rebuilding for the future after they were knocked out of the Champions League by Paris St Germain on Wednesday, interim coach Guus Hiddink said. The defeat left Chelsea with the FA Cup as their only realistic target this season because they trail Premier League leaders Leicester City by 20 points and are 10 behind Manchester City who occupy the last Champions League qualifying spot. “My opinion is that Chelsea is now in a transitional period. They have to see how to go on and try to regain the lost terrain where Chelsea used…
Leicester City’s remarkable rise to the top of the Premier League this season has not surprised Manchester City right back Bacary Sagna, who said the Foxes had been the team to beat since they escaped from the jaws of relegation last year. Claudio Ranieri’s side are currently five points ahead of second-placed Tottenham Hotspur in the league with nine games left to play. Under former manager Nigel Pearson, they won seven of their last nine matches last season to finish 14th after long appearing condemned to relegation. “I’m not surprised,” Sagna told British radio station Talksport. “They have quality players……
A hair’s breadth separated Leicester City and Newcastle United at the end of the relegation battle last season but a 36-point chasm and a gulf in confidence exists between the sides ahead of Monday’s Premier League clash. With Leicester’s title challenge showing no sign of wilting as the inevitable pressure of the run-in continues to mount, Newcastle’s season is seemingly skidding towards the abyss. It is by no means certain that Newcastle manager Steve McClaren will still be in the dugout for the game at Leicester’s King Power Stadium with his immediate future up in the air. A scheduled meeting…
Arsene Wenger will take stock of Arsenal’s mounting injury problems after the FA Cup holders’ progress to the quarterfinals came at a cost. Aaron Ramsey, Per Mertesacker and Gabriel Paulista were all substituted during the comfortable 4-0 victory at Championship side Hull City that stretched the Gunners’ three-year unbeaten record in the competition. Retaining the FA Cup for a third season looks to be Arsenal’s best hope of silverware in a season where Wenger has again come under attack for his side’s failings in their efforts to win the Premier League for the first time in 12 years. They trail…
Arsene Wenger’s running feud with a section of his team’s fans showed little sign of abating after Tuesday’s FA Cup win over Hull City, with the Arsenal manager saying he had nothing to fear after supporters unveiled a banner urging him to quit. Arsenal breezed past Hull 4-0 to reach the last eight and keep their bid for a first FA Cup hat-trick since Blackburn Rovers in the 1880s alive, but some supporters remain unhappy with the manager amid a faltering league campaign. Fans at the Hull game unfurled a banner that said, “Arsene, thanks for the memories but it’s…
Holders Arsenal kept up their bid for a hat-trick of FA Cup trophies, marching into the quarterfinals as Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott netted twice in a 4-0 replay win at second-tier Hull City on Tuesday. France striker Giroud had not scored in his 11 previous games but made the most of a terrible back pass after 40 minutes and then doubled the lead with 20 minutes remaining following a sharp volley from close range. Walcott sidefooted the ball home to make it 3-0 before his low drive capped Arsenal’s first win in six games. Victory though came at a…
Arsenal players held a “closed doors” crisis meeting without their manager’s or coaches’ knowledge before Tuesday’s FA cup win against second tier Hull to discuss a woeful run of five games without a win in all competitions, striker Theo Walcott said. Arsenal are third in the Premier League table, eight points behind Leicester City, and are facing a Champions League last-16 exit for the sixth year in a row unless they can overturn a 2-0 first-leg deficit when they travel to Barcelona next week. “We are not going to lie,” Walcott told reporters after Tuesday’s game. “We know as a…
As Tottenham prepare to host their bitter north London rivals Arsenal in a Premier League six-pointer on Saturday home coach Mauricio Pochettino offered generous praise to his opposite number Arsene Wenger. The match is Wenger’s 48th North London derby in his 20th season at Arsenal, and comes as the Frenchman’s team are faltering in their title charge in third on 51 points, three adrift of Spurs in second while leaders Leicester have 57. “It is about the special capacity that Alex Ferguson had and now Arsene Wenger,” Pochettino said, comparing Wenger to the more successful but now retired counterpart at…
Keeping manager Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham Hotspur for the foreseeable future is key to the club’s ambitions of challenging for major honours in the seasons to come, defender Kyle Walker has said. Pochettino, who joined Spurs in May 2014, has overseen an impressive campaign this season, with the club second in the Premier League behind Leicester City and challenging for a first league title since 1961. Tottenham also face German side Borrusia Dortmund in the last 16, first-leg of the Europa League on Thursday and Walker wants Spurs to hold on to the Argentine, whose achievements have not gone unnoticed…
Van Gaal has played down talk that the heated rivalry between Liverpool and United adds extra significance to a two-legged tie that begins with a match at Anfield on Thursday, saying Sunday’s 1-0 Premier League defeat at West Bromwich Albion was just as significant to him. “Several people are thinking that they (Liverpool) are the enemy,” Van Gaal said. “I am not thinking like that. I am thinking that they are the opponent. We want to beat the opponent. “For the fans, it’s a bigger something, but for me, no. I want to win every game. When we win against…
Louis van Gaal has suggested that anyone who derides Manchester United and Liverpool for being in the Europa League is living in the past. The English giants have been champions of Europe eight times between them –- Liverpool on five occasions, United three – but now find themselves facing each other in Europe’s secondary club competition. Van Gaal though has dismissed suggestions that it is a sign that the bitter rivals are in decline, claiming instead that all clubs go through troughs at some stage. Liverpool failed to qualify for the Champions League after finishing sixth domestically last season, while…
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has suggested that his team’s Europa League meeting with Manchester United has a claim to the title of “the mother of all football matches”. The two teams have one of the longest-standing, and most keenly felt rivalries in world football, but have never met in European competition before. It means that Thursday’s round of 16 first-leg meeting at Anfield will be a first, and Klopp sees it as one of the biggest matches on show anywhere in the world. That is despite the fact that they will be meeting in European football’s secondary club competition rather…
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp stands on the brink of history ahead of their Europa League clash against Manchester United on Thursday, but it is an unwanted record the German coach is battling to avoid. Never during the two sides’ fierce 122-year rivalry have Liverpool lost five successive matches against United, but they stand on the brink of the unwanted milestone after four straight defeats. Liverpool boss Klopp has only been in charge for one of those games, having joined the club in October, and feels recent history will not affect the outcome of Thursday’s last 16 first-leg match. The squad…
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp’s affection for his players pushes them to put every last drop of effort into their performances, past the point where fatigue has taken its toll, midfielder Adam Lallana has said. One of the most iconic images of the German’s first game in charge in October is of an exhausted Lallana being enveloped in a warm hug by his manager having harried and chased Tottenham Hotspur all over the pitch in a 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane. “I didn’t know what to expect coming off the pitch,” Lallana told the Liverpool Echo. “He went for a…
With Chelsea 10 points below the top four in the Premier League, they face next season being almost certainly their first without Champions League football since Russian billionaire owner Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003. Saturday’s FA Cup quarterfinal at Everton represents their last potential path to silverware this season and Hiddink said the club’s hierarchy would need to think hard about their next managerial appointment. “Chelsea is now in a transition period,” said Hiddink, who has returned last season’s Premier League champions to an even keel after succeeding the sacked Jose Mourinho in December. “They have to see…