Arsenal’s season of woe took another miserable turn on Saturday as the Premier League giants crashed out of the FA Cup in a 2-0 defeat at Sunderland.
Arsenal — all but eliminated from the Champions League in midweek following a 4-0 rout by AC Milan — saw their last realistic chance of ending a seven-year trophy drought snuffed out at the Stadium of Light.
Kieran Richardson took advantage of a poor clearance to lash in Sunderland’s opener in the 40th minute, before more shoddy Arsenal play culminated in a 77th-minute own-goal by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
Photo: Reuters
The defeat means Arsene Wenger’s side are left with only qualification for next season’s Champions League to play for this season and it provides further ammunition for Arsene Wenger’s growing legion of critics.
Wenger had uncharacteristically criticized his players in public following the Milan defeat and he demanded a response against Sunderland.
However, Wenger’s men were always struggling to impose themselves as Martin O’Neill’s team advanced to the quarter-finals with an energetic display.
“I felt we were a bit unlucky. It was a 100 percent performance from us and their first shot was a goal. Then we had to chase the game, take a gamble and they caught us on the break for the second goal,” Wenger said. “We had a lot of possession, but didn’t create a lot of because of some fantastic defending by Sunderland.”
Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas’ problems mounted after his side labored to a 1-1 draw with second-tier Birmingham City.
Daniel Sturridge headed home a second-half equalizer to save Chelsea’s blushes at a restive Stamford Bridge after David Murphy had fired Birmingham into a shock lead on 20 minutes.
Villas-Boas’ position has come under scrutiny following reports of a training ground mutiny by his senior players after last weekend’s Premier League defeat to Everton at Goodison Park.
His team have now won just one game in their past six in all competitions and Villas-Boas was forced to watch as his side were booed off the field following another unconvincing display.
“It is a poor result of course. We had a better performance in the second half compared to the first half,” Villas-Boas said afterwards. “One-one is not what we expected, but it gives us another chance at Birmingham as we try to win a trophy.”
Villas-Boas insisted he enjoyed “unconditional” support from Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.
Elsewhere in the round-of-16, second-tier Leicester City claimed a Premier League scalp as David Nugent’s second-half winner clinched a 2-1 victory at Norwich City.
Nigel Pearson’s team made the perfect start through Irish defender Sean St Ledger, who headed in Ben Marshall’s corner in the fifth minute.
Norwich equalized in the 23rd minute when Leicester goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel gave away a penalty with a foul on Elliott Bennett. Schmeichel saved Wes Hoolahan’s spot-kick, but he could not prevent the midfielder scoring from the rebound.
However, Nugent gave Leicester victory when the former England striker latched onto Jermaine Beckford’s flick and fired home in the 71st minute.
Japanese teenager Ryo Miyaichi inspired Bolton Wanderers as the struggling Premier League side brushed aside second-tier Millwall 2-0 at The Den.
Owen Coyle’s team, beaten semi-finalists last season, are second bottom of England’s top flight, but they quickly took control in south London as on loan Arsenal midfielder Miyaichi marked his first Wanderers start by sweeping a high finish past Steve Mildenhall in the fourth minute.
Former Liverpool striker David Ngog ended Millwall’s hopes of a replay with a powerful strike from just outside the penalty area in the 59th minute.
Everton took the express route into the last eight with a 2-0 win over second-tier Blackpool at Goodison Park.
It took only 49 seconds for David Moyes’ side to take the lead through Dutch forward Royston Drenthe’s emphatic finish and Argentine striker Denis Stracqualursi increased their advantage just five minutes later with a close-range finish.
Blackpool wasted a chance to reduce the deficit in the final minutes when veteran striker Kevin Phillips blasted a penalty over the bar.
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