Rafael Benitez has challenged his misfiring Liverpool stars to prove they are genuine title contenders with a display of character against Tottenham tomorrow.
Liverpool's abject performance in a 1-0 Champions League defeat by Marseille midweek has further raised the stakes for the pick of this weekend's Premier League clashes, one in which Spurs boss Martin Jol's job will once again be on the line.
Benitez's position is not in any way comparable to that of Jol, who may well have been out of a job if his side had not fought back from 4-1 down to draw with Aston Villa on Monday.
But the Spaniard knows that a second home defeat in a week would deal a massive blow to confidence in his ability to turn the huge financial investment Liverpool's owners made over the summer into trophies.
Liverpool's woes in Europe have been exacerbated by the fact Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal, all demonstrated real grit in securing midweek wins and Benitez now wants his squad to match the commitment of their title rivals.
"We must improve, we must show our character now," Benitez warned.
"We know we have to do better. We showed character to get a draw against Porto when we did not play well, and we showed character to win at Wigan last weekend in a hard match," he said.
"Now we must show character against Tottenham. That is our first priority after the Marseille result," Benitez said.
The Champions League reverse has again focused attention on Benitez's penchant for constantly altering his line-ups, but he has been unrepentant on that score and it is almost certain there will be another string of changes to his line-up for tomorrow's clash.
Spurs, who will be hoping Monday's fightback was a sign they have turned the corner in what has been a desperately disappointing start to the season, are hoping to have Jermaine Jenas and Aaron Lennon back from injury.
Manchester United can go top of the table, for 24 hours at least, if they beat struggling Wigan at Old Trafford in one of only two matches scheduled for today, the other being Aston Villa's meeting with West Ham.
United will have an unusual look about them in central midfield as Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves and Darren Fletcher are all injured.
Defender John O'Shea is the favorite to be pressed into the holding role as United seek to sharpen their cutting edge after a string of hard-won 1-0 victories.
Arsenal entertain Sunderland tomorrow looking for a 10th consecutive win in all competitions, Chelsea travel to another struggling side, Bolton, and third-placed Manchester City host Middlesbrough.
Given that Bolton are already fighting for their top flight lives, the Reebok Stadium might not be the ideal place for Chelsea to experiment with the more expansive style that new boss Avram Grant has admitted he is trying to introduce.
The Israeli acknowledged after the win in Valencia that serving up more entertaining soccer was part of the brief he had been handed by Roman Abramovich following Jose Mourinho's departure.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier