Wed 30 Jan 2008
This round of games had some interesting fixtures on paper. Believe it or not, all the games on the 29th had the winning teams keeping clean sheets.
Arsenal 3-0 Newcastle ( Emmanuel Adebayor, Mathieu Flamini, Cesc Fabregas)
Newcastle didn’t pose a threat all to the Gunners, and slumped to their eight defeat in 12 games away from St.James’ Park. Dennis Wise would surely not have been impressed.
Wed 30 Jan 2008
The Ivory Coast had a splendid opportunity to send rivals Nigeria out of the African Cup of Nations. Instead they did the Super Eagles a huge favour by beating Mali 3-0, and Nigeria qualified by virtue of their 2-0 over Reinhard Fabisch’s Benin. If Nigeria had failed to qualify , it would have been their first group stage elimination since 1982.
Sun 27 Jan 2008
This year’s Carling Cup final will feature one of the two teams that played at the Millennium Stadium last year for the title- Chelsea. The other finalist last year, Arsenal, lost to bitter rivals Tottenham Hotspur, who will be making their first appearance in the final since 2002, when they lost to Blackburn Rovers.
This is Chelsea’s third Carling Cup final in four years, and the Blues had Joe Cole to thank for it. After beating Everton 2-1 in the first leg, Avram Grant’s side rode on the back of a goal from midfielder Cole to win the tie 3-1 on aggregate. A frantic search for Chelsea tickets will now begin for those eager to watch the second All London final in the history’s competition. Last year’s final between Arsenal and Chelsea was the first.
Fri 25 Jan 2008
Wigan Athletic have signed striker Marlon King from Watford on a three and a half year contract. The move comes hours after Fulham, who were once favourites to sign King, let Collins John move to Vicarage Road.
Wed 23 Jan 2008
Here are the results from the 26th African Cup of Nations being held at Ghana between January 10- February 20, 2008.
Thu 17 Jan 2008
Apart from movies and news, people usually watch television for sports. Rupert Murdoch once reportedly said that he saw sport as the ” battering ram ” for pay television. Indeed, broadcasters fork out millions of dollars for winning rights to sporting events. A major reason why BSkyB is such a prominent player in the UK today is because of its access to exclusive football rights. It was Sky which encouraged the Premier League to break away from the Football League in 1992. Sky had a monopoly over telecasting live football games, until Irish broadcaster Setanta sports took 2 of the six packages offered by the Premier League from the 2007 season. Setanta Sports forked out £392 million, while Sky paid £1.3 billion for the remaining for packages. The deal meant that Sky pays around £4.8m for each game, while Setanta pays £2.8m. Setanta telecasts 46 games from the Premiership, while Sky owns the rights to 92.
Thu 17 Jan 2008
Chelsea have signed Serbia and Montenegro defender Branislav Ivanovic from Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow for an undisclosed fee. Ivanovic has been given a work permit, and has also passed a medical and finalised personal terms. According to reports, he can play anywhere in defence, but used to play as rightback for Lokomotiv.
Sun 13 Jan 2008
Here is a list of all the transfer activity from in and around the Premiership. All the below mentioned transfers have had a Premiership club involved in some way or the other. All figures in pounds. If you find an error, please report it to us using the contact button on the top right hand corner of your screen.
Arsenal
In : Luke Freeman ( Gillingham-200K)
Out : Matt Connolly ( QPR), Lassana Diarra ( Portsmouth- rumoured to be around 5.5M), Kieran Gibbs ( Norwich - loan), Mark Randall ( Burnley)
Aston Villa
In : Wayne Routledge ( Tottenham -1.25m)
Out : Chris Herd ( Port Vale- loan), Stephen O’ Halloran ( Southampton- loan), Gary Cahill ( Bolton- loan)
(more…)