Wayne Rooney has raised the stakes for this weekend’s Manchester derby by casting scorn on newly rich City’s hopes of knocking champions United off their pedestal any time soon.
Tomorrow’s clash, which precedes an equally intriguing encounter between league leaders Chelsea and crisis-hit Arsenal, will be the first cross-Manchester skirmish since City were propelled into soccer’s financial super league as a result of a takeover by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
The new owners have already financed the £32.5 million (US$50 million) acquisition of Robinho and more stars look set to follow the Brazilian to the City of Manchester stadium in January.
PHOTO: AP
But the investment has yet to produce a significant improvement in terms of results with City currently languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League table, well below where they were at this stage last season under Sven-Goran Eriksson.
The Swede left his successor Mark Hughes with plenty to live up after masterminding victories in both derby matches last season — as well as ensuring United, who can ill afford to lose any further ground to Chelsea and Liverpool, will have added incentive to do well tomorrow.
As Rooney pithily put it: “It’ll be nice to show City who are the kings of Manchester.”
Suggestions that City’s rise to the top of the English game is now a matter of when not if have been greeted with bemused indignation by the reigning English and European champions.
“It doesn’t irritate us that City are getting all this publicity,” said Rooney, before really putting the boot in. “If they were winning trophies it would irritate us, but while they’re still lingering in mid-table we’re not too bothered about it.”
Having suffered five defeats already this season, Arsenal will travel to Stamford Bridge looking to convince the doubters that their title challenge can somehow be resurrected in the wake of William Gallas being stripped of the club captaincy over his public criticism of his team-mates.
Gallas has been replaced by Cesc Fabregas, and the 21-year-old, whose reign began with a 1-0 win over Dynamo Kiev in midweek, insists there is life left in the Gunners.
“We have played only 14 league games this season and it is not over yet. Nothing is done and we will fight until the end. Our target is to go there and win, because we could get some points back. The other teams at the top have some difficult games as well,” he said.
Arsenal’s supine performance in a 3-0 defeat at Manchester City last weekend enabled Aston Villa to replace them in the top four and Martin O’Neill’s side could rise to third, for 24 hours at least, by beating Fulham at Villa Park today.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later