Anelka goal sinks United
Premier League round-up
Benitez rift with owners
Barwick in no rush
FIFA distribute free tickets
Nicolas Anelka scored the only goal of the game as Bolton Wanderers surprisingly beat an out of sorts Manchester United at the Reebok Stadium. United boss Sir Alex Ferguson was sent to the stands for the second half after a half-time rant at referee Mark Clattenburg. This was Gary Megson’s first victory as Bolton boss and sees his side jump from second bottom to 15th in the Premier League table. Arsenal took advantage of United’s defeat to move three points clear at the to of the table with a 2-0 victory over Wigan Athletic. Arsene Wenger’s men left it late though with two goals in the last seven minutes by William Gallas and Tomas Rosicky.
It was a good day for the Merseyside clubs as Everton steamrollered a disorganised Sunderland side 7-1 at Goodison Park and Liverpool travelled to Newcastle United where they beat the Magpies 0-3.
Manchester City beat Reading 2-1 at Eastlands courtesy of Stephen Ireland’s injury-time volley. The result means City maintain their 100% home record.
Elsewhere, there were good away victories for Aston Villa, who won 0-3 at Middlesbrough, Portsmouth who beat Birmingham City 0-2 at St Andrews and Chelsea who beat bottom-placed Derby County 0-2.
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A rift has developed between Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez and the club’s American owners after the Spaniard openly questioned their transfer policy. Earlier in the week, Benitez was told by club co-owner Tom Hicks to “quit talking about new players” after suggesting they were holding up his transfer plans. However, Benitez continued his rant after his side’s 0-3 victory at Newcastle by saying: “They don’t understand what the transfer window means in Europe. They need to understand how difficult it is to sign players.”
Football Association chief executive Brian Barwick is in no rush to appoint a new England coach. Barwick is in Durban for Sunday’s 2010 World Cup draw and said: “There is no time frame. We will not get trapped into a time frame. We will see how long it takes. The first thing we have got to do is concentrate on the World Cup draw, which is why we are here then take a breath, pause and move it forward. The concentration factor, 100 out of 100, is on the World Cup draw and when we get back home we start in earnest the recruitment of the next manager.” In deciding who should replace Steve McClaren, Barwick will consult Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger as well as England players John Terry and Steven Gerrard.
Up to 210,000 tickets for the 2010 World Cup will be distributed free of charge to the South African public. FIFA General secretary Jerome Valcke stated: “the cost of the free tickets will be met by our commercial partners”. There will be four categories of ticket prices with only the cheapest category available to South Africans.
Nathan Davies