Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard has revealed that he feared that he would never play again, and that the last six months have been the hardest of his career.
The England international has just recovered from a groin injury that has kept him on the sidelines since March, making a scoring return to the Anfield starting line-up on Saturday against Manchester United.
Given the nature of the injury, Gerrard has stated that at times he wondered if he was facing retirement.
“When I got the injury, I knew it was going to be a serious one, something I wasn’t used to – and I’ll admit I was down, as low as I’ve ever been as a footballer,” he told Mirror Football.
“I think it’s only natural that you have doubts. Different things cross your mind from time to time.
“I was fighting to get fit, just to get out on the pitch. I was trying to put my body on the line, but it wasn’t the real me and I wasn’t the player I want to be,” he continued.
The operation that followed was necessary, and was a long time in the offing according to Gerrard.
“Before the operation, I’d been getting niggles and having injections to play. Basically I knew I wasn’t right.
“I was missing training sessions and coming in the day before a game trying to get that last session in, or having injections to play the next day.
“You can only do that for a certain amount of time before your body gives in, and mine gave in. My groin packed in on me and when it happened I was down and I was low.
“It probably wasn’t until I got off the crutches that I started being really positive again. I could see I was progressing day by day, and when that happens your positivity creeps back in. Without a doubt, the last six months have been the hardest of my career,” he concluded.
By Gareth McKnight
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With our theme of looking into the future of football this week coinciding with the Champions League games, it got me thinking about the taboo idea of a European Super League forming in the future. The Champions League has played a huge part in the expansion of football as a global brand but is part of the progression a formation of a Super League featuring the best teams in the world? Would it be exciting knowing that your team (whether that be Manchester United or City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool or Chelsea) will be playing the likes of Barcelona, Inter Milan and Bayern Munich twice a season rather than travelling to Wigan and Blackpool? Or would the fans of the latter mentioned teams lose support because there is no visit from the big clubs anymore?
In 2009 Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said he felt a European Super League could happen in the next decade. With the vast amount of money involved in football, especially the Champions League, you can see why there may be plans on the horizon in in the beautiful game. Just take a look at the reputation of the FA Cup, which has declined since the rise of the Champions League, and the importance to finish in the top four. Maybe in the future, the Premier League might lose the same appeal if the richest/biggest clubs are the only real competitors and the only real competition is from the occasional European games.
I imagine the concept working with a 20 to 24 team league structure full of all the best teams in Europe competing over home and away fixtures throughout a season. There is the possibility of a play-off at the end of the season with the top 4 clubs competing over semi-final and final rounds to determine the European Champions. However, there may be some debate over to which teams qualify as I am sure UEFA would want to include teams from all over Europe rather than fill it with teams from England, Spain, Italy and Germany. So what are all the positives to this possible future proposition for football?
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Pros:
– Entertaining fixtures week in and week out. It will be a showcase of the best teams in the world competing against each other over a whole season, TV deals with clubs will be as high earning as ever and the demand for tickets will see average stadium attendances over the 100,000 mark.
– Football evolution. In the history books of football there have always been changes to the game so that it progresses and this European Super League will be seen as an improvement to the game as a whole. The days when European Cup football was competed over a knock-out competition will be seen as out dated.
– There could still be a chance for those breakaway clubs to compete domestically in their national cup competitions.
– After a few seasons UEFA will be forced to form a European Super League Two to open up more competition with a promotion and relegation system introduced. Eventually more leagues will be introduced, creating a European type pyramid league system.
– Global club football. The formation of the Super League persuaded South America and Central America to create a similar league structure and the World Club Cup tournament compliments the season.
– The quality of international football increases with the best players in the world playing against each other on a regular basis.
Personally I would not like to see a European Super League because it would be a change in football for the worse. However, I do believe that it will be formed in the future due to the rich clubs getting richer and the potential in profit that a Super League would create. Although, domestically in England, I believe clubs would still be able to survive due to the love of football in this country. Let’s have a look at the negative points to a Super League…
Cons:
– The history of football will be changed forever if the Super League was to be created. The league competition domestically across Europe will lose all its foundations and may see clubs going out of business. Might as well rip up the record books and start again.
– The new Super League persuades clubs to become franchises and those clubs involved will lose touch with their fans for the sake of the clubs ‘brand’. Clubs relocating becomes a trend, players start to reach £500,000 a week salaries with £200 million transfer fees!
– A breakaway league causes such a divide with the domestic leagues that a divide in the sport occurs. With UEFA’s rules for the Super League no longer recognised by the FAs nationally and FIFA is forced to only accept players from the Super League for international football (Think Rugby League and Union).
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– Therefore the clubs competing in the Super League would not be allowed to enter domestic cup competitions or play friendly games with clubs from the national leagues.
– The pyramid system advances so far that the future European League (five) sees the likes of Wigan Athletic playing Monaco which sets new records for lowest attendances and television views.
– Fans of the Super League clubs become disillusioned and form new clubs encouraged by the successes of AFC Wimbledon and FC United.
– After several seasons the Super League has lost that special Champions League feeling that it was based on. Fans shunned by their now franchised clubs are starting to protest and demand a return to the domestic league structure of the past.
My alternative would be to move the Champions League tournament to the end of the domestic leagues and played within a month like FIFA’s World Cup. Domestic leagues would run earlier and finish early with winter breaks; this would allow clubs to focus on domestic and European competitions individually, which would increase competition.
The war of words between Joey Barton and Karl Henry has continued, with the Wolves man defending himself against claims that he is out to injure fellow players.
The pair clashed in QPR’s 3-0 win over Wolves at Molineux on Saturday, with Barton labelling Henry as a ‘Sunday League player’ and claiming Mick McCarthy must have ‘been on drugs’ when he decided to sign the midfielder.
The FA will not take action against Barton, and Henry has retorted and defended himself against the claims.
“Joey Barton was telling everyone he is on 80 grand a week as usual. That is him. He always does that during the game. Always. He riles a few people up when he says those things and tells everybody how great he is,” Henry told The Guardian.
“It is just embarrassing really. If that is what he wants to do, he can carry on doing it but that is why a lot of people dislike him. He has tried to reinvent his image but it is probably the same old story.
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“I know we had our battle last season. I don’t want to keep going over it. But [on Saturday] they were winning the match. There was no need for him to keep going on the way he does,” he concluded.
The announcement that the keys to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford are all but set to be handed over to West Ham in favour of Tottenham’s bid will have come as little surprise to most, but the nature of the decision’s release and a few aspects that have come to light since are most troubling.
West Ham were always deemed favourites for the stadium, namely due to their geographical closeness between their existing ground, Upton Park, and the site of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.
Their bid was in direct contrast to Spurs’ bid. West Ham proposed to keep the running track, a key issue when dealing with the Olympic Park Legacy Company, and have already got sufficient plans in place to make revenue, such as striking a deal that would see Madonna perform at the stadium and an agreement to have Essex play their Twenty20 games at the stadium.
Spurs however, from the outset, were not afraid of rocking the boat. They planned to demolish the stadium, the running track included, and build their own stadium to suit their own needs. As part of their bid, to appease outcry from the world athletics community, they also planned to redevelop Crystal Palace, the current home of UK athletics.
Sources leaked as early as yesterday suggested that the decision was all but made in West Ham’s favour, before the Olympic Park Legacy Company had even reconvened to make a final decision. It has since transpired that the board came to a unanimous verdict. Add into the mix that an 11am press conference had been called in central London for today, only to then be postponed until an hour or so later, and it would appear that the board had already made their mind up as to the victor in this most bitter of pursuits.
Former Spurs Chairman Lord Alan Sugar had this to say on the days events: “I am somewhat outraged that there have been leaks. The OPLC board say nobody should take any notice of them and that no decision has been made, but usually there is no smoke without fire. The leaks about Tottenham only meeting three of the five-point criteria, well, if that’s the case why did they even get past the first rounds of the process? It has not been very well handled.”
Lord Sugar is of course correct, no final decision has yet been made and the OPLC, while a major player in the decision, is an advisory board. The government and Mayor Boris Johnson are expected to rubber-stamp any such preference that the OPLC may have though and the Spurs bid, while not completely finished, does look somewhat dead in the water.
It does beg the question though as Lord Sugar also queried – if Spurs’ bid fell down on two of the major criteria to win the bid, why were they even considered?
The theory doing the rounds now is that Spurs’ bid was doomed to failure from the outset and that it was being used as nothing more than a pawn in negotiations between the OPLC and West Ham over various issues such as keeping the word ’Olympic’ in the stadium name. Even if West Ham do choose to sell the naming rights to the stadium they must now ensure that the word Olympic remains in the title and the OPLC also sought a firm and lasting commitment over the issue of the running track, the main issue of debate between the two bids.
Conspiracy theorists will have a field day over the coming weeks and any such decision will be bitterly contested in another round of who can make the most unpleasant comments towards the other, but it appears West Ham’s bid has been favoured due the club’s stronger links with the community.
If that is the main criteria, then it is hard to argue against, for a football stadium is supposed to be the epicentre of a community, however, it does appear that Spurs have been misled from the beginning to a certain extent. The honesty of their bid and their true intentions has been clear from the start whereas West Ham’s has at times hidden behind smoke screens and emotive rhetoric.
As happened with England’s failed bid to win the rights to host the 2018 World Cup, there appears to be more at work here than meets the eye. It is odd for such a strong and well-structured bid such as Spurs to come up so short with concerns to what the OLPC were looking for.
West Ham have presented a very strong case and perhaps their victory was assured purely on the strength of their bid, little more. From the West Ham perspective, Spurs are simply crying foul because they lost and the fact that West Ham’s bid already has so much in place with concerns to bringing in various revenue streams is certainly commendable. However, in keeping with the mood that has dominated the bidding process so far, this story may have a few twists and turns in it just yet before it is over.
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Brendan Rodgers is attempting to tie up a deal of to bring Fulham’s Clint Dempsey to Liverpool, according to The Daily Mail.
The transfer is expected to be completed at the end of the week and will relieve the Anfield faithful after losing out on the signature of Gylfi Sigurdsson.
The Iceland international held back from a permanent move to Swansea following Rodgers’ departure from the club but Tottenham Hotspur swooped in late on and snatched him from under Liverpool’s nose.
Dempsey, 87-times capped by the USA, could become Rodgers’ second signing of the summer, following the capture of former Chelsea striker Fabio Borini from Roma last week.
The 29-year-old’s goal scoring record has improved year upon year for the Cottagers, with his 17-goal haul last season representing his most prolific to date.
Dempsey is capable of playing anywhere across the midfield and forward lines and his versatility would therefore make him a very astute signing.
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He may be unlikely to play with Andy Carroll however, who continues to be linked with a move away from Liverpool with reported interest from West Ham United, AC Milan and his former club Newcastle United.
Stoke manager Tony Pulis has revealed that his side failed in attempt to sign Scott Parker on transfer deadline day.
The England international opted to move from relegated West Ham to Tottenham in a £5 million move last week, but the White Hart Lane outfit were not the midfielder’s only choice.
“We did have a go for Parker. It was something we were trying to do for a few weeks,” Pulis admitted to The Sentinel.
“But we realised that if he could, he wanted to stay in London. That was a big part of it with him. I felt there were certain areas of the team we can improve and have to improve and that was one of them.
“I enquired about him and kept in touch with Sam Allardyce to find out what the situation was. But Sam said Parker would prefer to stay in London because he’d got three boys in school there,” the Britannia boss concluded.
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Stoke did manage to confirm the signings of Peter Crouch, Wilson Palacios and Cameron Jerome before the window closed however, and all three are in line to feature for the Midlands club against Liverpool on Saturday.
Goals from Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young gave Aston Villa a narrow 2-1 victory at fellow strugglers Wigan on Tuesday.
After an even first half, two goals in the space of 11 minutes after the break allowed Villa to take a stranglehold on the English Premier League encounter, which they held on to despite James McCarthy’s late consolation.
Villa’s 24-million-pound man Darren Bent was quickly into the game, taking delivery of a lovely through ball from Carlos Cuellar with instant control, although his finish was weak and straight at Ali Al Habsi.
Midfielder Stewart Downing then tested the Wigan goalkeeper, who was up to the shot, with Bent also finding the goalkeeper with the rebound.
Wigan winger Charles N’Zogbia had two decent chances for Wigan and – despite failing to work Brad Friedel in the Villa goal – teed up striker Hugo Rodallega, who should have done better from the edge of the area.
The Colombian then squandered a great chance mid-way through the half, firing over after superb build-up play from McCarthy.
The rest of the half petered out, but Villa flew out of the blocks after the interval and found the opening goal inside four minutes.
Young had already seen an effort tipped over by Al Habsi when his corner was met by the head of Cuellar. But while Al Habsi made a magnificent save to deny the Spaniard, the ball looped up on the goal line and was nodded in by Agbonlahor.
Wigan’s response was immediate, with McCarthy’s cross headed inches over his own crossbar by Villa defender James Collins.
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But Villa stamped their authority on the game on the hour mark when Young was needlessly tripped inside the box by Hendry Thomas and the forward picked himself up to smash the penalty down the middle of the goal and past Al Habsi.
Young missed a good chance to make it 3-0 before McCarthy pulled a goal back on 79 minutes with a shot that deflected in off Collins. But Wigan could not muster another to claim a share of the points.
Roberto Di Matteo has admitted that he is fully aware of the pressure on him to deliver with Chelsea in 2012-13, after moving from the interim manager to permanent boss of the Stamford Bridge club.
The Italian coach filled in on a temporary basis last term and excelled after Andre Villas Boas’ dismissal, leading the west London side to the Champions League and FA Cup trophies.
Despite this, Chelsea are on something of a transfer push this summer, signing Eden Hazard, Marko Marin and Kevin De Bruyne, and Di Matteo knows he needs to succeed to keep his job.
“I am very happy to be here,” he told reporters at a press conference, reported by Sky Sports.
“I was going to respect and accept any decision [from the board] but I am looking forward now to working with this group of players and hopefully bringing further success.
“The pressure will always be there. There has been speculation from day one and I have lived with it from day one.
“I have lived with it and I focus on my job and everyone else can say and write what they want.
“I have been in football all my life. I clearly know that managers are judged by results, as simple as that. It’s no different for me than anybody else.
“The end of the season was remarkable and the team was outstanding in achieving those targets, but that is the past – now we look to the future and we have to start again.
“We have to try and get running from the start and be competitive in all the competitions we are involved in.
“With Chelsea you are always looking to compete and be in the frame to win something at the end of the season, that will be the key.
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It’s been an exciting summer in the red half of Merseyside with Kenny Dalglish flexing his financial muscles. Over £100 million has been spent since John W. Henry bought the club in October 2010. A January splurge by Dalglish for forwards Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez was followed by another spree, which saw Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam and Stewart Downing all move to Anfield. It’s been a remarkable upturn in fortunes for Liverpool who look a completely different side to the one that started the 2010/11 campaign under Roy Hodgson. Money has been spent on young and exciting players boasting Premier League experience. Whether they can all gel and take Liverpool back to the summit of the Premier League is uncertain but under King Kenny you’d be foolish to bet against them.
Steve Bruce also splashed the cash this summer bringing in nine new players during pre-season. The most exciting of all is young Connor Wickham signed for £13 million from Ipswich Town. Touted as the future of England’s front line the 18-year-old shows that the Wearsiders have ambition. They looked set for at least a 7th place finish last season only to fall down the table dramatically after the sale of Darren Bent. But the money gained from his and Henderson’s sale have been spent wisely with John O’Shea and Wes Brown being brought in from Manchester United to add experience to a leaky backline. Seb Larsson, David Vaughan and Craig Gardner are shrewd buys from relegated Birmingham City and Blackpooland will offer flair, goals and plenty of graft in the midfield.
With both teams fielding a hoard of new signings this has the makings of a very exciting season opener. Jordan Henderson making his Anfield debut against his boyhood club adds a little extra spice and I think he and his side will come out on top against the Black Cats.
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Verdict: 2-1
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New signing Steven Pienaar could make his Tottenham debut when Spurs travel to face Newcastle in the Premier League on Saturday.The 28-year-old South Africa international, whose three million-pound move from Everton was completed on Wednesday, will inject even more guile into a Spurs midfield that already features the likes of Gareth Bale, Rafael van der Vaart and Aaron Lennon.
The north Londoners are in fifth place in the league table, eight points behind leaders Manchester United, who they held to a goalless draw in their most recent Premier League outing.
Newcastle are in ninth place in the league, eight points behind Spurs. In their last league fixture they held sixth-place Sunderland to a 1-1 draw in the Tyne-Wear derby at the Stadium of Light, and have claimed seven points from their past three games.
Alan Pardew’s men will, however, be keen to reverse the 2-0 loss they suffered at White Hart Lane last month.
Pardew is still waiting on the fitness of star striker Andy Carroll, who missed the Sunderland game with a thigh strain, meaning Irishman Leon Best could again partner Shola Ameobi up front, with Dane Peter Lovenkrands another option.
Defender Ryan Taylor and winger Hatem Ben Arfa are long-term casualties and are certain to miss out, while Cheik Tiote is out through suspension.
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Redknapp has little news from the treatment room to concern him ahead of the clash, with only long-term absentees Jamie O’Hara, Ledley King and Tom Huddlestone unavailable.
In further positive news for Redknapp, defender Jonathan Woodgate emerged unscathed after making his long-awaited comeback from a groin injury when he played for a Spurs XI in a 9-2 win over Queens Park Rangers in a training-ground friendly on Tuesday.