Archive for December, 2008

Ricardo Fuller reignites his feud with Stoke City team-mate Andy Griffin following their confrontation at Upton Park

Any hope Stoke City had of defusing the row between Ricardo Fuller and Andy Griffin disappeared last night when the Jamaican accused his captain of provoking him before the incident at Upton Park on Sunday when he was dismissed for slapping his team-mate in the face. Fuller said he had been upset by Griffin who had been "very rude and disrespectful". His comments come prior to a team meeting that has been called today by the Stoke City manager to bring an end to the episode.

Tony Pulis will speak publicly about the incident today for the first time since the 2–1 defeat at West Ham and the Stoke manager is unlikely to be impressed with Fuller for reigniting the feud. The 29-year-old, who is Stoke's leading scorer this season with six Premier League goals, was facing a three-match ban for violent conduct and a two-week fine before he gave an unauthorised interview that would appear to have exacerbated the situation.

Recalling the moment in the second half that led to the two players clashing after West Ham had equalised, Fuller said: "I just said to Griff 'clear the ball out' and he was just very rude and disrespectful so that's what happened. It's all done and dusted now. What he said was bad but what I did was worse. And I'm going to be suspended now for three or four games. So I'm looking forward to the new year now, hopefully it will be a better one for me."

Peter Coates, the Stoke chairman, said 24 hours earlier Fuller would not be sold but the player said he was not so sure about his future. "Who knows? I give my all for Stoke all the time, maybe I give too much, maybe that is why I am in this position now. I always try to do so much for Stoke City because I am a Stoke City player at the moment. That's what I care about: Stoke City, the team and myself — Stoke first."

Fuller accepts his actions at West Ham contributed to Stoke losing and slipping into the relegation zone. "I feel really bad, especially [as] I cost my team points on Sunday. But that's how it goes in football sometimes. You want to do so well and things happen.

"There is never smoke without fire really but it happened and that's all. I feel sorry for the fans, especially, and for costing the team three points. Hopefully it doesn't happen again."

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Rafael Benitez vows that charge against Steven Gerrard will not derail Liverpool’s season

Rafael Benítez is determined that Liverpool's best season in recent years will not be disrupted by Steven Gerrard being charged with assault and affray. The midfielder yesterday trained for the first time since spending 20 hours in police custody after an incident in a Southport nightclub.

Liverpool's manager yesterday told the club's website that Gerrard is focused on trying to win the league with a side the England midfielder had claimed was "the best I have played with" only hours before his arrest.

"He's trained with the other lads this morning after a couple of days off for the squad and is keen now to focus solely on his football," Benítez said. "We've worked very hard to get into the position we're in going through to the new year, and all of us are determined to keep that progress going."

Benítez said he had spoken to Gerrard in the presence of the club's lawyer before training. "Steven is our captain and a key player for us but more than this, I know him as a nice person. I told him he has my full support and backing, along with everyone else at the football club. We'll do whatever we can to support Steven in the weeks ahead, but we're now concentrating on our preparation for the FA Cup game at Preston this weekend."

The Professional Footballers' Association has also offered the England international its support. The chief executive, Gordon Taylor, said: "We have a watching brief on this and have offered any help we can. I was concerned when I heard about the case as I have known Steven Gerrard a long time. I don't know the full details but as the players' union, we would want to be supportive of him."

After scoring two goals in Liverpool's 5–1 defeat of Newcastle on Sunday, Gerrard joined friends for a celebration in Southport that ended with the incident at the Lounge Inn. The bar's 34-year-old DJ, Marcus McGee, needed hospital treatment after losing a tooth and sustaining cuts to his forehead which reportedly needed stitches.

Gerrard is due to appear in North Sefton magistrates court for an initial hearing on 23 January – four days after the Merseyside derby at Anfield – with John Doran and Ian Smith, friends who are from the Huyton area of Liverpool where he grew up. Both have also been charged with assault and affray. Gerrard faces a maximum five-year jail term if convicted.

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Marina Hyde’s suggests some New Year’s resolutions for a better Premier League

The happiest of new years to you all. And what business have we on this fine morning but to make our 2009 resolutions? What business have we — bar the nursing of sore heads, the mumbling of semi-amnesiac apologies, the paying of bail bonds — but to sit down with pen and paper, resolving to do things a bit differently as we enter this not-altogether promising new year? Yet as we ponder what fresh hells must take their place beneath item one on the list ("never drink again"), spare a thought for football, which is traditionally denied the luxury of drafting a catalogue of resolutions for its betterment.

At this time it has its hands full, not with New Year's Day fixtures but the January transfer window. This very morn, it flings open that fabled casement, and sticks its head out into the fresh air of commerce, only to be caught unawares as someone upstairs empties the contents of their chamber pot.

This year, then, let us resolve to take up the slack for our Premier League brethren and their Wag-ren, and suggest resolutions for them. The crucial thing is not to set goals too high. Resolutions should always be incredibly realistic and achievable, so you can despise yourself even more when you fail to live up to them. By way of an example, a friend tells me he "might try and eat slightly healthier snacks when watching sport". See? There is simply no point kidding yourself about thrice-weekly gym visits, but piously denying yourself the fourth tube of Pringles before half-time is a possibility. This borderline nihilistic acceptance of the nature of the beast is what you should aim for as you rattle out your prescriptions for football.

To get the ball rolling, let us resolve that the Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, will relax the hopelessly stringent "fit-and-proper test" for prospective club owners, perhaps to allow serial killers the opportunities they have hitherto been denied. Having done so, he must grant himself emergency powers and impose Games 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 and 45 without delay, on the basis that a beggar such as the Premier League can't be a chooser. Each will be held in one of the seven Arab emirates. You should resolve to watch them on Setanta's new super-premium pay-per-view service.

Incidentally, should that exuberant sheikh at Manchester City somehow persuade Gianluigi Buffon to take his £400,000 a week, the keeper might resolve not to do a Ballack and complain about prohibitive English property prices.

Elsewhere, the rampaging armies of middle-class thrift bores currently laying waste to features sections should resolve to expand their ingenious brainwaves into the sports pages. We've already had our Christmases revolutionised by their suggestions for making our own presents ("Why not melt down 250g of really good quality white chocolate and stir in some nuts and rose petals?" Because it still costs a tenner, you tedious creature.) Now let's see them work their alchemy in the transfer window, starting with solving Arsène Wenger's midfield problems using only a ball of yarn and some really good quality white chocolate.

Other dreams? Well, as indicated, difficult times lie ahead for so many, and when terrible upsets come it is perfectly understandable that there should be tears. However, on the basis that worse things happen at sea – or indeed, down your local Jobcentre – one should resolve to pull oneself together after 30 minutes of snot-festooned sobs, or before the runners-up medal ceremony, whichever comes soonest.

Oh, and whoever ghostwrites Coleen McLoughlin's OK! column for her should resolve to stop attempting to sabotage Mrs Rooney by stealth. These are anxious times for our foremost Wags, leaving them searching for a new, slightly less conspicuously consumptive public pose, and Coleen's most recent effort lacked a certain tact. Her Christmas stocking fillers, madam informed readers, included a new necklace. "I've already got one in gold, but I wanted one in white gold too." And then there was "a new Bentley. It's an updated version of the one I have now but in a different colour. I'm so excited, I love the smell of a new car". Come on, OK! Script her a "Coleen feels your pain" storyline, or football's Reign of Terror might come sooner that it would like.

Further suggestions are invited, though we'll play out with something manageable. No one expects them to write their own books, but in 2009, players might consider showing a gracious solidarity with their fans by at least resolving to read their own autobiographies.

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Hull’s manager Phil Brown is defiant about his public team talk at Manchester City

Phil Brown will be 50 in May but his party plans have been placed on hold until Hull City are safe from relegation. "The one thing I want for my birthday is to remain a Premier League manager," he admits. "That means everything." A few weeks ago it seemed Brown could safely have booked a venue for that landmark bash and told his pals to keep the 30th free, but suddenly Hull fans fear spring could be a time for consolation rather than celebration.

After just one win in 11 games the early season adrenaline surge which propelled them into the Champions League zone has subsided. Although Hull already boast 27 points, Brown's decision to berate his players on the pitch at half-time during the 5–1 Boxing Day defeat at Manchester City appeared a dangerous gamble. While such behaviour carries the risk of "losing" a dressing-roomful of rich young men it also smacked of desperation.

Undaunted, the likeable, often engagingly exciteable, Brown insists it was all part of a calculated strategy. "Why not conduct a team talk on the pitch?" he retorted. "Why not do it in front of everyone. It wasn't a knee-jerk reaction. It was definitely the right thing to do. If it meant bruising one or two egos so be it."

It is early days but the creditable nature of Hull's narrow home defeat by Aston Villa on Tuesday night suggests that Brown – whose failure to remove his walkie-talkie headset before administering that rollicking afforded him an unintentionally comic air – might just have got away with it. Indeed his little piece of public theatre could yet prove a watershed moment, sparking a midwinter revival.

Similarly Stoke City must wait to assess the ramifications of their most gifted individual, Ricardo Fuller, being sent off for slapping his own captain, Andy Griffin, during last Sunday's defeat at West Ham. Such creative tension is perhaps inevitable when hard-won Premier League status comes under threat. While never reaching Hull's high altitudes, Tony Pulis's side began the campaign in quietly encouraging fashion but have now gone six league games without victory and have slipped into the relegation zone.

Undeterred, Stoke's chairman, Peter Coates, draws comfort from the tightness of the table. "Any three of 12 could get relegated but Tony will be making at least three new signings during January and I'm still confident we can stay up. We can give any team a good game."

Across the Midlands, another Tony knows new life has been breathed into his West Brom side's survival challenge courtesy of festive home wins against Manchester City and Tottenham. Like Brown, Tony Mowbray played under Bruce Rioch and became familiar with the former Bolton and Middlesbrough manager's mantra that "mountains are there for climbing". While Hull and Stoke have nimbly traversed their way to the halfway point, Mowbray is entitled to wonder if that pair might just lack the necessary nerve and technical ability to scale the tricky rock face now confronting them.

"I like my team and believe our quality will start counting," stressed West Brom's manager, who has been hampered by a lack of fit strikers and transfer market cash. "We have several teams around us like Middlesbrough, Stoke, Wigan, Bolton, Newcastle and Sunderland visiting the Hawthorns in the second half of the season and we can make things very uncomfortable for those sides."

Paul Duffen, Hull's chairman, is another man who prefers to see his club's glass as half full and is happy to sanction a February bonding break in Bahrain where Brown trusts the sunshine will exert a healing effect on squad morale. "I'm sure the teams that are four or five points behind us are looking at Hull and wishing they were in our position," reflected Duffen. "If we start looking at teams at the bottom we'll end up down there with them. We've just got to keep looking up, have confidence and be courageous and committed."

Confidence is very much the X factor for newly promoted teams struck by mid-season vertigo. Once belief starts evaporating, previously assured performers are suddenly bafflingly betrayed by hitherto trusty first touches.

"We've had some disappointing results lately and confidence is damaged by defeats," admitted Michael Turner, the Hull defender. "But although we've had a slight setback and haven't met the challenge of people's growing expectations we are all in this together. We feel we can definitely start winning again."

The invitations cannot be posted yet but Brown's friends and family remain poised to party on 30 May.

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Premier League: Sylvain Distin says the January transfer window will test Portsmouth’s ambition

Sylvain Distin has warned Portsmouth that their actions in January's transfer window will demonstrate to the club's senior players what the long-term ambitions are at Fratton Park. The Frenchman, who is contracted until the summer of 2010, has rejected suggestions that he might leave mid-season, but expressed concern at the possibility of other key players following Lassana Diarra out of the club.

"I've not had any contact with any other club and, with that in mind, I couldn't leave because there aren't any offers anyway," he said. "But there's no point closing our eyes to the realities of the situation. The club is up for sale, and the best players are leaving, so it's not positive. At the moment, we don't know the club's true ambitions. January offers the club an opportunity to show the players, the supporters and the outside world the best possible response: it will be telling to see exactly which players come and which players leave."

Portsmouth have rebuffed interest from Tottenham Hotspur in the likes of Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch and Glen Johnson and have completed the £4.4m permanent signing of Nadir Belhadj from Lens. The chief executive, Peter Storrie, expects Tony Adams to add further new faces to his squad this month, backed as he is by a proportion of the £19.5m fee which took Diarra to Real Madrid, with Ben Sahar's return to Chelsea freeing up another domestic loan slot.

"Tony will be given the means if he wants to strengthen the squad," said Storrie. "From talking to him I know he is looking to do most of his business in the summer. That's when he feels we will get more value for money and more players are available. But we are still talking to people now and are looking to bring in two or three during the transfer window to improve the squad. We are primarily looking to recruit and are planning to bring players in."

Pompey have allowed defenders Lauren and Richard Duffy to look for new clubs, with both players out of contract in the summer and with no prospect of new terms being offered. Meanwhile, Jean-François Christophe will join Southend United permanently after a loan spell at Roots Hall.

"Lauren and Duffy have asked if they can leave in January and we have said they can," added Storrie. "They have to find new clubs, however, and their agents are currently circulating their names. With Christophe, we have agreed a nominal fee with Southend which includes a sell-on clause. They are currently in the process of finalising that."

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