Daily News Roundup: 03 April 2007

By Ahmed Bilal on April 3rd, 2007

Premiership football takes a short break as we get ready for Champions League quarter finals. Let’s see what the top news is today:

Before we start though, here are the links to Soccerlens coverage of the four Champions League quarter-finals:

CL QuarterFinal Coverage

Tuesday 3rd April and Wednesday 11th April
AC Milan vs Bayern Munich
PSV Eindhoven vs Liverpool

Wednesday 4th April and Tuesday 10th April
Chelsea vs Valencia
Roma vs Manchester United

I’ll be updating those posts next, so do take a look.

On with the daily news:

1. Manchester United beat Arsenal in FA Youth Cup Semi-Final:

Manchester United’s youth team beat Arsenal’s youth team after going down two goals on aggregate last night. Manchester United eventually won 4-3 on aggregate, beating Arsenal 4-2 at Old Trafford. After all the hype that’s surrounded Arsenal’s youngsters, this is a welcome result.

Manchester United’s kids will now play Liverpool in the FA Youth Cup final.

2. Benitez will take Liverpool spending to 120m in his 4th year?

Rumours that Benitez will have a 40m war-chest are cute but ultimately manufactured and untrue. What IS interesting is the way Liverpool fans are excited about more money being available, considering that Benitez has spent almost 80m in the last 3 years.

Here’s a breakdown:

04-05
Total spending £15.85m
Costliest buy Xabi Alonso, £10.8m

05-06
Total spending £28.9m
Costliest buy Peter Crouch, £7m

06-07
Total spending £29.7m
Costliest buy Dirk Kuyt, £10.9m

Their most successful season was 2004-2005, when Benitez brought few players in and worked instead with the same squad for a longer period of time. That season they won the Champions League and came 5th in the Prem. Last season they were 3rd in the Prem and won the FA Cup. This season, their only hope is the Champions League, and they have a bye to the semi-finals.

Do Liverpool need more money? After spending over 58m in the last two seasons? Really?

3. Joe Cole – welcome back

A while back Terry referred to Joe Cole as a kid and told the press how eager Cole was about getting back to playing football for Chelsea, asking the doc every day about his progress and then having a ball at his feet everywhere he went.

Tomorrow, Joe Cole may get his wish with a cameo appearance against Valencia.

If I was Mourinho, I’d hold Cole back. If I the Valencia manager, I’d send on a player right after Cole is brought in and have him injure Cole. He’s that frackin’ dangerous in full flow (I’m joking about deliberately injuring him).

I don’t think Manchester United would be 6 points ahead if Chelsea had Joe Cole available all season. He’s a fantastic, fantastic player. I don’t think England and Steve McClaren would be in this mess either.

Welcome back Joe Cole – we’ve missed you.

4. Roy Keane after Forlan for Sunderland?

The only source I have for this is the Mirror, because of which I’m a bit skeptical.

However, here’s the deal – apparently Roy Keane called Forlan up to tempt him to a move back to England. My understanding is that the return would be based on Sunderland’s ability to secure promotion to the Premiership. It’s a smart move and shows that Keane is aware of the type of player required to keep Sunderland up in the Prem (if and when they get there) and that he’s not afraid to try his personal connections (I wonder if he’ll ever call Veron?).

Forlan refused, choosing to sign a new 4-year deal with Villareal instead.

Forlan:

“I am a very good friend of Roy from my stay at United. For me, he is a star worldwide.

Roy called me to explain his project at Sunderland and offered the chance to play there as one of the main reinforcements in the next campaign.

I’m grateful but I’m happy here. But I may return one day. Nothing is impossible in football.”

Source: Mirror

5. New hotshot Premiership midfielder?

Niko Kranjcar – 23 yr old Portsmouth midfielder – is the latest ‘new sensation’ in the Premiership, his goal over the weekend getting him some good press. He’s open to offers from ‘bigger’ clubs as well (read quotes here), so which ‘top’ clubs need midfielders this summer?

Is Sunderland a bigger club than Portsmouth?

Here’s the YouTube vid for Kranjcar’s goal against Fulham on Saturday.

6. Vidic breaks collarbone

All that the press has done is proven that I’m an excellent lip-reader.

After Vidic fell on his shoulder and had to be stretchered off against Blackburn, one of the physios went over to Ferguson and told him that Vidic’s collarbone was broken. All I saw on TV was the guy pointing to his collarbone and mouthing the word ‘broken’.

If it was that simple to find out about Vida’s injury, why the pointless speculation about a dislocated shoulder (considering that a dislocated shoulder can be determined just by looking at the player, and Vidic didn’t have that problem)?

7. Hunt for England’s next manager

The search for a McClaren replacement continues, and today’s pick is Louis van Gaal, AZ Alkmaar coach who has a contract option that allows him to take over a top international side in 2009.

Read more here.

8. Blatter FIFA president till 2011

What are the requirements to stand up as a candidate for the FIFA presidency? I’d like to try next time around, because it is ridiculous that the incumbent faces no challenges in his third term (and why do they allow presidents to stay on for so long?).

Here the news brief on it from UEFA.com. The Guardian called Blatter a ‘clown’ on their main page when reporting this news (yesterday), although they have since removed that piece as more sensationalist news took its place. Well done lads, the professionalism at GU towers makes me proud.

9. Newcastle planning huge 300m development project

Newcastle are looking at ways to bring more money into the club by developing the area around St James Park.

And yes, there will be people coming in and people leaving at Newcastle, but the lists of exits proffered by some newspapers are just rampant speculation.

Full report.

10. Euro 2008 tickets status

This is interesting – UEFA announced yesterday that tickets for Euro 2008 were “30 times oversubscribed” after the first round of applications. The huge demand means the second round of sales — initially planned to allocate unsold tickets on a first come, first served basis in June — has been abandoned.

Bummer. Looks like I’ll either have to get hitched with the media to get tickets, or buy them on the streets.

11. Owen Hargreaves column

In his latest column Hargreaves talks about the top two players in the world (Kaka and Ronaldo), Bayern’s chances against Milan and a bunch of other things. Have a look.

12. Soccerlens Coverage

Put up a couple of football videos yesterday, plus there are some news items you might have missed: