RANIERI WINS PREMIER LEAGUE MANAGER OF THE YEAR AWARD

June 30, 2016 |   |  Blog

The manager of newly crowned winners of the English Premier League, Leicester City, Claudio Ranieri was given the award of Barclays Premier League Manager of the Year and League Managers’ Association Manager of the Year awards on Monday.


The Italy International received the recognition for his incredible work with The Foxes this past season as the team shared the news via Twitter.

Expected to battle relegation for much of the season, Leicester stormed out of the gate and challenged for the Premier League title all season, eventually beating out Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur for the first top-tier championship in their history. Ranieri’s appointment last summer was initially met with skepticism, as the Italian had been sacked from his previous job with Greece and had found limited success since his stint with Chelsea.

Ranieri’s humble, laid-back approach was exactly what Leicester needed. The 64-year-old soaked up the headlines and the media attention throughout the campaign, keeping the pressure off his players. Tactically, Ranieri opted against tinkering with his team too much and used the 4-4-2 for most of the campaign, relying on his squad’s defensive prowess and raw pace. The likes of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez proved perfect fits for such an approach. Read more

ZinedineZidane is not certain about his Real Madrid future

May 20, 2016 |   |  Blog

Since being selected as the new manager of Real Madrid, ZinedineZidane has done an impressive job as he has guided the Spanish club to the finals of the Champions League and has a realistic chance of lifting the title that they secured since the season of 2013-14.

ZinedineZidane has a contract with Real Madrid that extends until 2017 but Florentino Perez is the president of the club and he is known to be quick in relation to changing managers and if Zidane fails to clinch the Champions League in this season, there is a chance that he might be sacked.


When the Frenchman was asked about his managerial future in Real Madrid, Zidane replied by saying: “We haven’t won anything yet and my belief is that when you have this job you have to give everything, every day and not think any further. I only concentrate on what we have to do; we’ll see what happens at the end of the season.”

The 43 year old manager only wants to focus in the every-day life as the manager of Real Madrid and when the season does reach it’s end, that’s when he will be start thinking about his future. This is probably the best thing that Zidane can do as the French coach has a tough task lying ahead with the finals of the Champions League arriving at the end of May and his team has to face off with Athletic Madrid. Read more

Mario Gotze’s future might be decided after the 2016 Euro’s

May 4, 2016 |   |  Blog

Mario Gotze is a priority signing of Liverpool and it has been revealed that the future of the German player is going to be discussed when the approaching 2016 Euro’s comes to an end during the summer transfer window.

The 23 year old player has a contract with Bayern Munich which extends until 2017 but taking into consideration that he has recently been dropped to the sidelines, it’s being rumored that Gotze is thinking about the possibility of leaving Munich and this is a huge boost for Liverpool as the Premier League club has shown interest in signing the highly rated midfielder.

Borussia Dortmund is also believed to be interested in signing Mario Gotze and are expected to compete with Liverpool in a race as to which club will be able to sign the German player who has a price tag in the range of £27million.

Under the tutelage of Pep Guardiola, Mario Gotze’s role in Bayern Munich has not been very influential but this might change when Carlo Ancelotti arrives to the Allianz Arena. It has already been confirmed that the Italian coach is going to become the new coach of Bayern Munich starting from the summer but it still remains uncertain if Ancelotti has plans for Gotze.

The CEO of Bayern Munich, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge stated that he will start having talks with Mario Gotze in relation to his future with the club but only after the conclusion of the current season after all of the matches of Bayern Munich are played. Read more

Melbourne Victory beats Western Sydney Wanderers 2-0

April 28, 2016 |   |  Blog, Live Basketball

Melbourne Victory beats Western Sydney Wanderers 2-0 thanks to a double by Oliver Bozanic. This boosted their chance to finish inside the top six.

Bozanic, who has been criticized time, and again this season, justifies his presence in the team not only with two wonderful goals but also with a great performance. His energetic display in the midfield allows him not only to score goals but also close down Sydney’s playmaker.

With Valeri available soon for Melbourne Victory, it would be interesting to see how both Bozanic and Valeri play together in the future.

Melbourne Victory was motivated from the start of the game and was determined to win this match. This was evident not only in attack but also in how the team defended together once they lose the ball. Victory’s form has been poor during recent weeks but in this game they were different. They were ready for a fight.

The first goal came when Oliver Bozanic fired a shot outside the box amidst the defenders. The outstretch keepers could not keep the ball out, and it was Melbourne that was leading.

Sydney Wanderers tried to equalize after having conceded the goals, but Lawrence Thomas denied them each time. Read more

Mark Hughes says that he has plans to deal with the dangerous Watford duo

April 7, 2016 |   |  Live Basketball, Live Soccer

Mark Hughes says that he has plans to deal with the dangerous Watford duo of Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo. Watford have exceeded expectations in the 2015-16 campaign and it has largely to do with these two players.

They have combined to devastating effect with the latter getting 14 goals already.Deeney, meanwhile, scored when Stoke City last came up against Watford. Hughes says that he has devised a plan to deal with the duo. He also acknowledged the managerial tactics of Quique Sanchez Flores as being brilliant. Hughes says that Flores would be considered for the PFA manager of the year award had it not been for Leicester City.

Watford were one of the favourites to get relegated. However, they have not been in a dogfight since the start of the season and they are just three points away from reaching the magical figure of 40 points for newly promoted clubs. Apart from doing well in the Premier League, the club has also reached the semifinals of the FA Cup. Since they do not have to worry about the league, Watford are expected to place their full concentration on reaching the FA Cup final. Stoke know a thing or two about reaching Wembley to play in a FA Cup semi-final as an underdog. Read more

Jamie Redknapp reckons that Chelsea’s only hope of getting a win against Arsenal at the Emirates stadium on Sunday

February 26, 2016 |   |  Live Boxing

Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp reckons that Chelsea’s only hope of getting a win against Arsenal at the Emirates stadium on Sunday will be to stop midfielder Mesut Ozil from being at the top of his game.

The German has been in inspirational form in the 2015-16 season. He had a reputation for assists before his move to Arsenal and it has only been enhanced with this season. Ozil is on course to creating a new record for the number of assists in a single campaign. Former Arsenal forward Thierry Henry holds this record, but Ozil is already up to 16 for the season.

Chelsea have improved under Guus Hiddink and the Dutchman has made the club tough to beat once again. They are unbeaten in the last five matches, but Redknapp reckons that the prospect of facing Arsenal will be a totally different proposition. As table leaders, Arsenal have immense confidence going into the match. However, teams like Stoke City have been able to get points off the gunners in the last few matches. In fact, Arsenal have had no wins in the last two league outings and this puts tremendous pressure on the team. They can reclaim top spot in the table with a win over the blues. Read more

Injuries and a busy schedule for Manchester City

January 14, 2016 |   |  Live Baseball, Live Basketball, Live Boxing

League Cup, Champions League and the Premier League are all of the top competitions that Manchester City have to play within the next few weeks and months. It will certainly be a schedule with non-stop action for Manuel Pellegrini and his players but this is not good news for the English club as they are a number of key players which are out injured.

Fernando, YayaToure, Sergio Aguero, Pablo Zabaleta, Vincent Kompany and Samir Nasri are all of the players in the squad of Manuel Pellegrini which have been suffering with injuries in these past few weeks.

These injuries have forced Pellegrini on having to change around his squad for certain matches and the Chilean manager will have to continue doing those makeshift teams for a few more weeks unless his main players start to recover.

Even with all of the injuries that the players of Manchester City have been experiencing, the club has still managed to reach the semi-finals of the League Cup, secured a place in the last 16 of the Champions League and are still in the top spots of the Premier League. Read more

Everton ended their run of three league matches

December 7, 2015 |   |  Videos

Everton ended their run of three league matches without a win in the best manner possible.

They thrashed Sunderland 6-2 at Goodison Park in a result that provides a lot of confidence to the blues. Over the last few weeks, confidence has especially been around these parts after the club went through the whole month of October without a league victory. The previous success for the club in the Premier League game against West Brom when a narrow 3-2 victory gave them all three points. The result against Sunderland, though, is much more emphatic.

Everton were always going to be the favourites against a relegation threatened to Sunderland, who had not really shown much improvement since the arrival of Sam Allardyce. The former Newcastle United manager has a reputation for keeping poor teams in the division due to a combination of factors. Allardyce favours a physical style of football that is really hard to play against, but it seems that he will need more time and possibly new players in order to spark a revival at Sunderland. Aston Villa continue to remain rooted at the bottom of the table while Sunderland are only slightly better. The Black Cats now have the worst defence in the Premier League with 25 goals conceded already. Read more

Steve McClaren has had to fend off questions about dressing room bust ups

October 1, 2015 |   |  Live Soccer

Newcastle United manager Steve McClaren has had to fend off questions about dressing room bust ups as is the case with every other team that is struggling in the Premier League.

The club are still winless under the new manager, who came on as the replacement in the summer. McClaren has previously disappointed in his roles at Premier League and Championship clubs. It seems like more of the same at Newcastle, who suffered an embarrassing 2-1 home defeat against newly promoted Watford during the weekend. The team showed no fighting spirit throughout the 90 minutes and McClaren is already fighting to remain in the job.

There have been allegations of problems in the dressing room caused by Cheick Tiote, who is currently injured. McClaren has dismissed those concerns by saying that he is someone who knowsTiote extremely well even from his days at FC Twente. Despite strengthening the squad immensely over the summer, Newcastle look to remain in the relegation dogfight towards the end of the campaign. Keen to avoid this, it has been suggested that the club must invest more in the upcoming January transfer window. McClaren, though, just wanted to concentrate on the club’s upcoming game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Read more

Steven Gerrard who prepares to play his final game at Anfield

June 16, 2015 |   |  Live Soccer

A number of tributes have been going in for Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard, who prepares to play his final game at Anfield.

The midfielder has joined LA Galaxy on a two-year contract and will be linking up with his new teammates after the end of the Premier league season. Since Liverpool conclude this campaign with an away match against Stoke City, a lot of tributes have been flowing in for Gerrard ahead of the final home game for Liverpool against Crystal Palace. The 34-year-old has spent his entire career at the club despite interest from several top clubs on numerous occasions.

Francesco Totti is also a legend in his own right. He has been at Roma since becoming a professional. Unlike Gerrard, it does not seem as if the Italian international is not ready to leave Roma for a final stint in the MLS or the Middle East. The 40-year-old continues to be a key player at the club. Gerrard, however, was in and out of the team during his final season and this appears to have played a major factor in convincing the player to leave Liverpool. Totti has lavished praise on the 34-year-old by saying that he is the complete midfielder in the world. Read more