Welsh rugby gets a fresh boost as Alun Wyn Jones has committed to staying on at Ospreys by opting to sign a fresh dual contract at the national level as well as with the club. His teammates of the region, Dan Biggar and Rhys Webb would be leaving regional ruby by the summer of 2018 but he has decided to continue to stay here to play the 14th campaign with his native region.
Toivonen’s goal got a gutsy Swedish national football team battle back coming up with a 1-1 tie with Russians – yet the Russian team manager commented on a possible winning fate for the visitors.
The match was hosted at Stockholm Friends Arena.
The Russian football squad took lead in tenth minute of the match when Kokorin (Alexsandr) surged through prior to cutting back on right foot & rolling ball through Antonsson (Mikael) & past a desperate dive of Isaksson (Andreas).
The Swedes practically wasted the best chance to equalize3 minutes later when Durmaz (Jimmy) upended in box by Smolnikov (Igor) – however, goalie Akinfeev (Igor) threw himself into his right, pushing away Larsson’s (Sebastian) well-struck penalty.
In for injured Ibrahimovic (Zlatan), Toivonen pulled the Swedes level in 49th minute of the match, turning home Jimmy’s low cross prior to being replaced with Elmander (Johan) 8 minutes later post a hamstring injury.
With 4 points from first couple of game, the Russians are leading C Group on the goal differences from Austria and Montenegro- with the Sweden squad in 4th place on 2 points. Next Russia would be hosting Moldova & the Swedish would be greeting Liechtenstein.
“I am glad with my team’s performance but not at all happy with the result”, stated Russian coach Fabio Capello, who is known to be hard task master. We had enormous opportunities to score our winning goal. There’re couple of saves from keeper, a mistake from the forward & some moments which were actually quite dangerous for the Swedes.”
Erik Harmen (Sweden coach) appeared quite content with the team fate in the Russian match, in spite dropping couple of points.
“I am really glad with our very attitude”, stressed the Swedish coach. “We started our game well & we played all good till their goal. It was akin to a big blow into your stomach when the Russians were 1-0 up.”
In the previous season Norwich City almost managed to escape the bottom relegation zone of the Premier League as they only needed 4 more points to steer clear away from the drop spots and avoid having to return to the Championship League but unfortunately for the squad of Neil Adams, they just could not collect those valuable points needed to survive for another season at the top tier England League.
Neil Adams is the man in charge of propelling the club to success and help the squad in their journey of returning to the Premier League. The 48 year old manager of Norwich City is confident that his players can accomplish that task.
Adams expressed his confident about his current roster of players as he told the media: “We are a Premier League club; we should be in the Premier League. We don’t have to sell any players, only if someone offers the right price, and I am delighted with the five players we have brought in. I have played in East Anglian derbies and it means just as much to win as a manager. It is not an easy place to go but I and the players knew exactly what it meant to our supporters.”
Adams is a fairly well-known figure in Norwich after he managed the club’s U-18’s and went on securing a triumph against Chelsea during the 2012-13 edition of the FA Youth Cup. He would later earn a promotion to coach the main team of the club as he replaced Chris Hughton a few months ago. Even though he has never been in charge of a team in the Championship League before, Neil Adams is confident in what he can achieve in the near future.
At the time of this writing, Norwich City is at the top spots of the Championship League with 9 points along with Watford and Wolverhampton Wanderers as they all are in 2nd place with the same amount of points so far but the league is just starting and there is more than 40 matches left to be played.
David Moyes was the man that Sir. Alex Ferguson handpicked to be his successor as the head coach of Manchester United. Moyes enjoyed a fairly moderate campaign during his time in Everton and even though he failed on actually securing trophies, he still produced admirable results which may be one of the main reasons on why Sir. Alex Ferguson decided to choose him.
After a series of disappointing results and consecutive defeats, some started to doubt whether Moyes was the right choice and the facts speak for themselves as the Premier League is reaching its end and Manchester United will miss out on Champions League qualification for the first time in 19 years. …
Both Petr Cech and Thibaut Courtiois performed for their countries during international friendly round. These two would have definitely caught Jose Mourinho’s eye.
Though both of them weren’t at their best on Wednesday night’s game, they both managed two goals each. It can’t be denied that they are two of the best goalkeepers in the world.
Though it’s an advantage and positive thing for Chelsea to possess two amazing keepers, it leaves a dilemma for Mourinho.
31 year old Cech is reaching the apex of a goalkeeper’s career whereas 21 year old Courtiois is currently playing his trade on loan at Atletico Madrid in Spain and is nowhere near there.
It is going to be very hard to guess who is going to be Chelsea’s number one next season.
Courtiois has already made it clear that he is unwilling to return to Chelsea in the summer just to sit on the bench. No one can blame him after his performance last season against Real Madrid in the Copa Del Rey final.
Atletico Madrid for a long time have communicated that they want to make Courtiois’ three year loan agreement permanent. Even Real Madrid is rumoured to have made a move for him.
No one knows what will happen to Cech if Courtiois really does become Chelsea’s number one.
In the decade he’s been with the club he has made so many achievements which are hard to match up to. One cannot forget the memorable night in Munich where Cech saved Ivica Olic’s penalty and angled Bastian Schweinsteiger’s work against the post to inspire the Blues to their first Champions League success.
Mourinho needs to keep history in mind. A loan could prove to be a short-term solution but Courtiois may not want or agree with it. And a player of Cech’s skill and aptitude will certainly not settle for the bench.
Norwich managed a stunning 1-0 win over Hull City that helped them move away from the relegation zone and also ease the pressure from manager Chris Hughton. The club has been coming under intense pressure from the fans to get rid of manager Hughton, who has the experience of working at several clubs in recent years. The team has been finding it very hard to score goals and it has been partly because of the form of summer signing Ricky Van Wolfswinkel, who was brought to the club for a record £ 8.5 million. However, he has not scored in the last 14 matches.
His first goal for the club came on the opening day of the season. Scoring goals has been a problem despite the presence of Gary Hooper, who was brought from Celtic for a large fee. The former Celtic man had scored a lot of goals with the Scottish outfit, but he has been struggling for form in the Premier league. However, he started the match alongside Wolfswinkel and played a major role in the victory. Both strikers, however, did not get on the scoresheet since it was Bennett who scored the winner in the 87th minute.
He managed to convert the corner from Robert Snodgrass to give massive three points for the home team.
“I’m very conscious that I’d like to play two up front, I’d like to play a midfield attacking schemer, I’d like to play two wide players that can both tuck in and score goals. The unfortunate thing is you can’t do all of them. It’s trying to get the balances right. Of course it’s [Wolfswinkel form] a concern. He’s someone who is used to scoring goals. He’s playing in a different league — sometimes that takes a little bit longer,” said Hughton after the Hull victory.