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Thursday, 28 February 2008

Arsenals Eduardo | William Gallas | Betting

The week's big talking point has been the horrific injury to Arsenal's Eduardo. It's a terrible shame a player of his quality will be out for so long. Croatia are most unfortunate in that they will be without one of their better players in the summer but the man himself is on the long road to recovery and thankfully now out of hospital. He needs the support of all of football, Croatia, Arsenal, his friends and his family if he is to make a return to football. Fingers crossed it's not too long.

That said, there are a number of people who should be hanging their heads in shame in the aftermath of the tackle. Yes, it was a bad tackle. It was arguably red card. But there was no malice involved, no deliberate intent to injure the player. Taylor mis-timed his tackle and he shouldn't have gone in with his studs up. But there are hundreds of mis-timed tackles every week. Taylor is unfortunate in that his resulted in a terrible injury to his opponent. He will have to deal with that and fortunately the PFA have offered him their full support. He's a centre-back who has had just six bookings and one red in a professional career spanning 200 matches before Sunday. Those saying it was deliberate and signing online petitions to get Taylor banned for life should be ashamed of themselves.

If anyone should receive FA punishment, it's Arsene Wenger. In his post-match interview he said, "The tackle was horrendous, the guy should never play football again." If this wasn't deplorable enough, he then compared him to a murderer ("you only need to kill a person one time, it's enough") before switching to the apparently far more important matter of a poor penalty decision going against his side. Wenger did (sort of) re-assess his comments later, saying they were "excessive". He didn't apologise to Birmingham or to Taylor, but just excused what he said by pointing out it was "immediately after the game."

The FA should be having a serious look at his statements like "to stop Arsenal you have to kick Arsenal" and "that kind of thing was waiting to happen." Where's Wenger's ban? How can he get away with saying such things? If he had come out and said "I'm going round Martin Taylor's house to beat him up, after I've taught the referee a thing or two about giving penalties against my team" would it be ok, because it was straight after the match?

Then there's the club captain... Gallas, who should've been banned for Sunday's match, was a total disgrace. When Birmingham were awarded a penalty (in hindsight, quite harshly) following Clichy's error at the back, Arsenal's captain showed his true colours. Rather than defending the box at the penalty (the job he gets paid to do), he stormed up the pitch in a huff and sat down. When the final whistle went, instead of showing concern for the younger (obviously traumatised) players who witnessed the injury, he sat down in Birmingham's half, crying. Pathetic. If Arsenal are to have any chance of silverware this season players like Gallas need to step up and stop acting like their Manager.

Thursday, 21 February 2008

Champins League | Celtic Betting |

Last night Celtic turned in a pretty decent performance considering the quality of opponent they were up against. It was good to see the Hoops having a real go at Barca and to go down fighting 3-2 is a very respectable result seeing as the entire defence forced to deal with Ronaldinho, Messi, Henry and Eto'o cost just £500,000.
Celtic's fans were magnificent last night (as they always are, it has to be said) and many of them will have left Parkhead feeling they've got a sniff in the Nou Camp in 2 weeks' time. Celtic Supremo Gordan Strachan, ever one to get caught up in the hype, had this to say when asked if he thought Celtic had a chance of progressing,
"I wouldn't put my house on it. It's taken me 35 years to buy myself a house and I'm not prepared to risk it on beating Barcelona by 2 goals in the Nou Camp."
Class. Fortunately, this gives us the ideal opportunity to indulge in some long-overdue Strachanisms...
Reporter: "There goes your unbeaten run. Can you take it?"Strachan: "No, I'm just going to crumble like a wreck. I'll go home, become an alcoholic and maybe jump off a bridge."
Reporter: "You don't take losing lightly, do you Gordon?"Strachan: "I don't take stupid comments lightly either."
On Delgado (at Southampton): "I've got more important things to think about. I've got a yoghurt to finish- the expiry date is today. That can be priority rather than Augustin Delgado."
Reporter: "Gordon, can we have a quick word please?"Strachan (before walking off): "Velocity."
And finally, having been welcomed to the Southampton job and asked if he was the man to take the club forward, Strachan said,'No. I was asked if I thought I was the right man for the job and I said, "No, I think they should have got George Graham because I'm useless".'
If we had more managers like him football would be a better game. By the way, have a look for Strachan's comments on the hype surrounding Wayne Rooney if you want more...

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

Champions League Tues | Liverpool

Champions League Second Round 1st Legs
Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20th Feb

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Friday, 15 February 2008

Cricket | Golf | FA Cup

It has to be said that this week's sport has been pretty disappointing. Nothing good's really happened. The real Ronaldo may have finished his career, UK Athletics were forced to pick Dwain Chambers for the GB squad (then publically damned the fact that they picked him) and Kevin Keegan has abandoned the idea of playing attacking football. Boring.
But let's look forward to the sport ahead. There's bucket loads of cricket, golf and football this weekend with the undoubted highlight being Man United v Arsenal.

FA Cup Free Bets | Man Utd v Arsenal

Man United v Arsenal KO 5.15pm

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Thursday, 7 February 2008

The weekend ahead.....

Tonight's Premier League Darts gets the show on the road with the last two world champions John Part (9/2) and Raymond Van Barneveld (8/13) on the oche at 7.40pm, with the tie priced at 9/2. The other big game of the night at 9.40pm sees Adrian "Jackpot" Lewis (3/1) cross swords with his old mentor Phil "The Power" Taylor (4/9) with the tie at 5/1. The Power lost his 100% Premier League record to James Wade in Glasgow last week and his aura of invincibility is slipping. Lewis was 7-0 up against a below par Terry Jenkins last week but eventually scrambled over the line. Other matches see Wade (2/5) take on Jenkins (7/2) and Peter "One Dart" Manley (6/5) play betdirect sponsored Wayne "Hawaii 5O1" Mardle (6/5). The tie in the latter is 4/1 and in the Wade game is 5/1. Can't wait.

It has not been a great week for the golden boys of Newcastle sport with Michael Owen bench-warming at Wembley and most Rugby Union aficionados wishing Jonny Wilkinson would join him on Sunday in Rome. Wilkinson will start and no doubt get the four points required for his international 1000 but Danny Cipriani must get his chance at outside half sooner rather than later. England must give the Italians a 13 point start in Rome and are priced at 10/11 as are the hosts (+13), with the tie 16/1.

Twickenham winners Wales (10/11) are 11 point favourites against the Scots (10/11 +11) at the Millennium Stadium (ko 2pm on Saturday) whilst in the battle of the two unbeaten sides from week one, France entertain Ireland later in the day (4pm) and they must give the Irish 14 points on the handicap.

A great weekend of horse racing begins with the Totesport Trophy from Newbury. Nicky Henderson has won four of the last nine runnings of the race and in Caracciola and Fleet Street he has two of the best-backed horses in the race. That said it's a Saturday and a big handicap so Champion trainer Paul Nicholls will have the jolly old favourite and Five Dream looks the one to beat. Cheltenham winners Denman and Voy Por Ustedes put their Festival credentials on the line although the former will go off a very short-priced favourite for the Aon Chase.
Leopardstown stages one of the biggest day's racing in the Irish calendar on Sunday with no fewer than three Grade 1s including the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup. It would be a surprise if the winner went onto glory but with Snowy Morning and Beef Or Salmon in the line up we may get some Grand National clues. Look out for Willie Mullins J'y Vole and Cork All Star in the other feature races.

Manchester United (3/10) will be looking for revenge on local rivals City (9/1) in the Manchester Derby (ko 1.30pm) which kicks off a wonderful Premiership double-header on Sunday. City gained a famous win at the City Of Manchester Stadium earlier in the season, but the wheels are beginning to fall off Sven's side and the farcical on/off transfer of Benjani from Pompey cannot have helped anyone. If United are to regain their position at the top of the table (Arsenal play Monday) they must do so without Wayne Rooney who is suspended.
Chelsea (4/5) entertain Liverpool (10/3) at the Bridge at 4pm. The Blues must get beat at home sooner or later and Liverpool for all their off the field distractions are a talented outfit. The draw is priced at 11/5 in what ought to be a fascinating clash of two of Europe's finest.

England have given the Black caps two good hidings in the 20/20 form of cricket and there seems no reason why the hosts should get revenge in the 50 over version which starts just after midnight on Friday. Paul Collingwood's side are 8/15 with New Zealand at 11/8. The CB series continues in Australia after a rain-interrupted start. The Aussies are 2/7 against Sri Lanka ( 9/4) in game 3 which starts at 2.45 Friday morning. Let's just hope they get a result after two wash outs.

Tuesday, 5 February 2008

Midweek International Friendlies

1st SCORER 2nd CHANCE…
England v Switzerland, Rep of Ireland v Brazil, Wales v Norway & Northern Ireland v Bulgaria
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