Martin O’Neill launched an attack on John Terry, accusing him of making a career-threatening challenge on James Milner during Chelsea’s 3-0 FA Cup semi-final victory over Aston Villa.
Villa manager O’Neill claimed Milner was lucky to escape with just heavy bruising following the 74th minute tackle that led to Terry being booked by referee Howard Webb at Wembley on Saturday.
“It was an awful challenge on an England colleague and James Milner is very lucky his career is still intact,” O’Neill said. “The referee has given him a yellow card but it should have been a red.”
“James is very sore and very, very lucky. We think he has got away with it, but if you see the challenge, his knee bends out. I’ve just spoken to the doctor and he says he is very, very lucky,” he said.
O’Neill’s sense of injustice was increased by what he believes was a glaring mistake by Webb to deny his side a 16th minute penalty after Gabriel Agbonlahor was brought down inside the penalty area by John Obi Mikel.
The manager was adamant his side should have been awarded a penalty and that Mikel should have been sent off for denying a goal-scoring opportunity. To make matters worse from a Villa point of view, O’Neill said the incident was the second time his side had been the victims of a bad decision in a major match at Wembley this season.
In February, he claimed Manchester United’s Nemanja Vidic should have been sent off when he conceded a penalty after bringing down Agbonlahor early in the League Cup final. United went on to win that game, as did FA Cup holders Chelsea on this occasion with Carlo Ancelotti’s side rallying through second half goals from Didier Drogba, Florent Malouda and Frank Lampard.
■PREMIER LEAGUE
AFP, WOLVERHAMPTON, ENGLAND
Wolves edged closer to Premier League survival after grinding out a dour 0-0 draw against Stoke at Molineux yesterday.
Mick McCarthy’s team are now six points clear of the drop zone with four games left.
Stoke enjoyed most of the early pressure and a header from Robert Huth flew straight at Wolves goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann before Dean Whitehead headed wide.
Faye wasted another good chance to put Stoke in front in the 23rd minute. Glenn Whelan hooked a cross into the area and Faye climbed above the home defense, only to head wide.
Mamady Sidibe wasted a good chance to put Stoke ahead after 54 minutes, when he slashed a shot wildly over the bar.
In a rare moment of danger for Stoke, Sorensen had to save a Ronald Zubar header.
Stoke finished stronger, however, as Whelan flashed a fierce drive just over, then curled wide from long-range.
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