English Clubs 2 Games In 3 Days

While mainland Europe is at rest on their winter break, English clubs are warming up for their hectic games of the season. Premier League clubs will play two matches in three days starting Saturday before their entrance to next weekends FA Cup. And if that is not much to worry about, clubs like the leader Chelsea are about to give up players to the African Cup of Nations. Chelsea is playing without Nicolas Anelka who is injured at in-form Birmingham on Saturday and will be weak in attack against Fulham on Monday due to the absence of Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou who will link up with the Ivory Coast national side. That will leave Carlo Ancelotti their coach with strikers Daniel Sturridge and Fabio Borini, neither of them made a point in their first seasons with Chelsea.

There are no players on Ancelotti’s wish-list that is present. Ancelotti said his squad can cope, even with midfielders John Obi Mikel and Michael Essien also leaving for Ghana and Nigeria.

Manchester United Dumped by Fulham

Fulham beat Manchester United 3-0 in English Premier League, and Portsmouth the team in the last place defeated Liverpool 2-0.  Arsenal thrashed Hull 3-0, Aston Villa defeated Stoke 1-0 and Tottenham won at Blackburn 2-0. Manchester City defeated Sunderland 4-3 and after a short time also released Mark Hughes as manager.  The win made Fulham retain its ninth place on 26 points.  Three time defending champion United remains second on 37, just three points behind Chelsea, which will try to increase their lead in a game tomorrow at West Ham. 

Portsmouth won for the fourth time in 18 league games this season to move higher off the bottom of the table.  Belhadj scored in the first half and Piquionne clinched the victory with eight minutes left. Pompey goalkeeper Asmir Begovic made a lunging one-handed save of a Steven Gerrard shot that was deflected off by two Portsmouth players in the 67th minute.

Fulham Learn From the Mistakes of Tottenham

Damien Duff the winger of Fulham insisted that the team is serious about this seasons goal for the Europa League campaign.  Aston Villa and Tottenham played using youngsters and reserves last term in the competition as fixtures piled up.  But Duff expects Hodgson’s team to be strong enough to cope up. They began the group stage against CSKA Sofia on Thursday for Europe’s second-tier cup and move to Bulgaria with confidence after Duff’s late winner at the weekend against Everton.  He will not let Europe be a negative major factor. 

Traveling games are sometime hard for the team but it gives good results and also gives the place a boost.  This makes the team excited and in turn you will not think of burning out.  Duff believes that Hodgson may do a squad rotation for the CSKA battle at the National Stadium of Vasil Levski.  Even with a slight injury in his knees, he thinks it will not be a major problem.  John Pantsil a full back is also eyeing an Everton win. 

When And Where the Next World Cup will be Held

The next World Cup will be help in South Africa from June 11 to July 11 2010. I have uploaded a PDF file to show you when and where the games will the played in South Africa. Click Here to Access the official match schedule for the African 2010 World Cup

Leave a comment about who you think the 2010 champions will be.

Cheer!