Gunners aiming for return to pole

March 6, 2010

Arsenal can return to the Premier League summit on Saturday, underlining the growing credibility of a title challenge that has looked forlorn at times this season.

The Gunners, who have a much easier run-in than either of their rivals, can move level on points with leaders Chelsea, who are on FA Cup quarter-final duty this weekend, by beating Burnley at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday.

If they do so by four goals or more they will regain first place, although that will last only a few hours unless second-placed Manchester United are beaten at struggling Wolves later in the day.

Whatever happens at Molineux, Arsenal’s resilience this season has been nothing short of remarkable

When they were beaten 3-0 at home by Chelsea at the end of November it left them 11 points adrift yet a run of results allied to their rivals dropping points saw them top the table seven weeks later.

Comprehensive defeats by Manchester United and Chelsea pushed Arsene Wenger’s side nine points adrift at the start of February but again they bounced back and are in contention for their first title since 2004.

“People were saying we were not good enough but we kept the confidence really high because we know we have the players and the quality to do it,” said defender Gael Clichy.

“Of course, when you find yourself 11 points behind the leaders you ask yourself: ‘It’s going to be really difficult. Are we capable of doing it?’ and a few weeks later you find yourself back in the title race and that’s a good feeling.

“So that shows you the character in the squad and, once again, with the players we have, I’m sure we can do it.

“Everyone wants to be the champion and it’s always difficult to be the champion, but to be the team who hasn’t won anything for several years, it’s even harder because you feel the pressure of winning something.

“It’s a good pressure because you want to do well for the fans and for yourself and win a trophy. We’ve played good football for five years and we know that we are a real side.”

That resilience was on show at Stoke City last week when Arsenal sealed a 3-1 victory after having seen 19-year-old Aaron Ramsey suffer a double-leg break in a challenge by Ryan Shawcross.

Ramsey won’t kick a ball again this season but Wenger was confident the Wales international could still win a medal.

“The title race will be tight until the end but this group is so strong mentally and have a unity so Aaron’s injury will give us one more reason to fight until the end and do it for him,” Wenger said.

Burnley have other concerns as they are fighting against relegation and travel to London with 13 defeats and a draw from their 14 away games this season and Brian Laws, the manager, has presided over just one win since Owen Coyle, who had led the Clarets to promotion, left for Bolton in January.

Last week they lost at home to bottom club Portsmouth and though Laws admitted he understood why the Turf Moor faithful had not been impressed he insisted the cause was not lost.

“It’s not like it’s our last game of the season with no comeback,” he said. “There’s a lot of games to be played and a lot of points at stake. If we can’t pick our points at home we have to pick them up away.

“Just let’s hope when the season ends we’ve achieved our aim and maybe look back with a smile rather than regret. We’re competing against teams who have got four or five times the salary we have. But are we good enough? Yes.”

LONDON (AFP)

Tags: burnley, champion, CHELSEA, Clichy, confidence, credibility, emirates, Emirates Stadium, gunners, london, Manchester, Portsmouth, ramsey, resilience, rivals, seven weeks, Stoke City, title challenge, trophy, Wales, wolves

A proposal from Germany could help cut out diving

November 11, 2009

Referee Peter Walton could face a suspension from the Premier League list if it is decided he made a mistake in Monday’s 2-2 draw between Liverpool and Birmingham.

Walton reckoned Liverpool striker David Ngog had been fouled by Lee Carsley and ignored the protests of his Birmingham team mates before Steven Gerrard converted the spotkick. Even Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez said afterwards he did not think it was a penalty.

Former Premier League and FIFA referee Graham Poll is among those saying the FA must change the rules, arguing that if the referee can be banned for a mistake, players should be punished too. Under current FA rules, players who dive cannot face retrospective action if they were not booked for “simulation” during the game.

Maybe the FA could follow a recent German experiment. If a player was thought to have dived, the referee was instructed to ask him: “Did you dive?”

If he said he did, he was not punished, but neither did he gain any advantage and the match went on.

If he said he didn’t dive and DVD evidence later proved he did, he was handed a severe ban.

Not a foolproof system by any means, but something needs to be done as diving players are damaging the credibility of the game.

PHOTO: REUTERS/Sergio Moraes

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Tags: Birmingham, credibility, David Ngog, fifa referee, foolproof system, Germany, Graham Poll, lee carsley, Liverpool, liverpool and birmingham, mistake, Peter Walton, premier league, proposal, protests, rafa benitez, reuters, Sergio Moraes, simulation, Steven Gerrard, striker, team mates, Walton

Nigeria grabs age cheats by the wrists

July 16, 2009

The decision by Nigeria to test their under-17 players to eliminate age cheats is the first step in ridding African soccer of a long-standing blight.

Nigeria Football Federation president Sani Lulu Abdallah has said this week his organisation will take the unprecedented step of measuring the bone density of players by use of an MRI scan, usually done around the wrist area, to approximate whether they are roughly the right age or not.

They will start before Nigeria put an under-17 side together for their hosting of the world championships later this year.

It has long been suspected that past sides (and Nigeria have won three World under-17 Championships) have had age cheats but Nigeria is among the first associations to have shown any willingness to try to tackle the issue.

There have been past admissions of cheating, almost all of them long after the fact, while some teams have been caught trying to change the date of birth of players, who had been previously registered for other competitions.

Similar scans to those proposed by Nigeria have not been implemented because they are not 100 percent accurate. But FIFA’s own findings have attached a 90 percent credibility to the tests…certainly much more credibility than the World Junior Championship will enjoy if age cheats go unchecked.

PHOTO: FIFA president Sepp Blatter, keen to root out age cheats, in Seoul Sept. 9, 2007. Blatter visited Seoul to watch the final between Spain and Nigeria at the FIFA U-17 World Cup. REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak

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