Manchester City boss Mark Hughes admitted his side had only themselves to blame for a humiliating League Cup exit at the hands of League One club Brighton.
The cash-strapped outfit from the third tier of English soccer triumphed 5-3 on penalties after matching City’s millionaires at their Withdean stadium on Wednesday evening.
It was a sharp reminder for City, newly-rich following their takeover by the Abu Dhabi United Group, that money alone cannot buy success and Hughes confessed they would have to take the defeat on the chin.
City had appeared to be coasting to victory inside the 90 minutes after Swiss midfielder Gelson Fernandes’ deflected shot put them ahead just after the hour mark.
But complacency crept in and sloppy defending ensured they were forced into extra-time when Glen Murray equalized in the final minute of regulation time.
Elsewhere, Tottenham earned breathing space for under-pressure boss Juande Ramos with a 2-1 win over Newcastle that sent the League Cup holders into the fourth round of the competition on Wednesday.
Chelsea, the side beaten by Spurs in last year’s final, marched into the fourth round with a convincing 4-0 win at Portsmouth in which Frank Lampard continued his superb early season form.
The midfielder has been outstanding for club and country since the uncertainty over his future was resolved before the start of this campaign and he capped another all-action display with two goals at Fratton Park, the first from the penalty spot.
Florent Malouda and Salomon Kalou were also on target for Luiz Felipe Scolari’s near full-strength side, in which Didier Drogba made his first start of the season.
Championship side QPR produced a shock when they knocked out high-flying Aston Villa with a 1-0 win at Villa Park. The most notable result since the west London club was taken over by Formula One tycoons Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone was secured by a Damion Stewart header just before the hour mark with Daniel Parejo — on loan from Real Madrid — the supplier of the cross.
Ipswich were made to pay for missing a string of first-half chances as they went down to a 4-1 defeat at home to Wigan. Jonathan Walters canceled out Lee Cattermole’s opener for Wigan, but goals from Olivier Kapo, Paul Scharner and Henri Camara saw the Premier League outfit run out convincing winners.
Martin Olsson’s 10th-minute strike proved enough for Blackburn to overcome a weakened Everton at Ewood Park. Blackburn won 1-0.
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