Arsenal will head into this weekend's north London derby against Tottenham buoyed by comments from Patrick Vieira that the current team are playing better soccer than when he captained the Gunners.
When Vieira left for Juventus in 2005, and his France team-mate Thierry Henry quit Arsenal for Barcelona at the end of last season, there were fears that Wenger's men would struggle to compete for major honors.
But Vieira, who in the course of nine years with Arsenal won three Premier League titles, is in no doubt about the quality of manager Arsene Wenger's current squad.
"Arsene has done some great things and the players are responding to him at the moment," the midfielder told Thursday's London Evening Standard.
"In my time, we had a great team. We played well and were physically strong. But this current team plays better football than in our day," he said.
"Whether that means they are going to win something is another story. But, whatever happens, Arsenal are one of the two or three teams in Europe who play the best football," Vieira said.
Tottenham have gone 19 games against Arsenal without a win. But under new boss Juande Ramos Spurs have lost just once in their last 11 games and on Wednesday ended Manchester City's perfect home record this season with a 2-0 League Cup quarter-final victory.
"It was the best performance since I came to the club and it sets us up for the rest of the season," Ramos said ahead of this weekend's trip to the Emirates Stadium.
Liverpool, left 10 points behind Arsenal and outside the top four following defeat at home to Manchester United, have a chance to restore the confidence of the Anfield faithful against Portsmouth.
However, the seventh-placed south coast club, whose push for European soccer suffered a setback when they lost at home to Tottenham last weekend, have been impressive away from Fratton Park this campaign, winning six out of nine on their travels.
Bolton Wanderers and Birmingham City will both look to pull further away from the relegation zone when they meet at the Reebok Stadium.
Manchester City will look to recover from their League Cup reverse away to Aston Villa with England Under-21 international Joe Hart given another chance by ex-England boss Sven Goran Eriksson to become his team's first-choice goalkeeper ahead of the likes of Kaspar Schmeichel.
Fulham and Wigan, both in the bottom three, have a relegation "six-pointer" to look forward to at Craven Cottage while English managers Gareth Southgate and Alan Curbishley go head-to-head when Middlesbrough play West Ham.
Reading, who risk being sucked into the scrap for top-flight survival, are at home to struggling Sunderland in tomorrow's other Premier League match.
Chelsea, six points off the top after losing to Arsenal, are away to Blackburn on Sunday which also sees Derby, six points adrift at the bottom of the table, at home to Newcastle.
Hong Kong-based cricket team Hung See this weekend found success in their matches in Taiwan, even if none of the results went their way. Hung See played the Chairman’s XI on Saturday morning, the Daredevils that afternoon and PCCT yesterday, with all three home teams winning. The team for Chinese players at the Happy Valley-based Craigengower Cricket Club sends teams on tour to “spread the game of cricket.” This weekend was Hung See’s second trip to Taiwan after visiting Tainan in 2016. “The club has been traveling to all parts of the world since 1982 and the annual tradition continues [with the Taiwan
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Coco Gauff’s dreams of a first women’s singles title in Melbourne were crushed in the quarter-finals by Paula Badosa. World No. 2 Alexander Zverev was ruffled by a stray feather in his men’s singles quarter-final, but he refocused to beat 12th seed Tommy Paul and reach the semi-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania and Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 in 2 hours, 20 minutes to advance the semi-finals. Hsieh and Ostapenko converted eight of 14 break
The San Francisco Giants signed 18-year-old Taiwanese pitcher Yang Nien-hsi (陽念希) to a contract worth a total of US$500,000 (NT $16.39 million). At a press event in Taipei on Wednesday, Jan. 22, the Giants’ Pacific Rim Area scout Evan Hsueh (薛奕煌) presented Yang with a Giants jersey to celebrate the signing. The deal consisted of a contract worth US$450,000 plus a US$50,000 scholarship bonus. Yang, who stands at 188 centimeters tall and weighs 85 kilograms, is of Indigenous Amis descent. With his fastest pitch clocking in at 150 kilometers per hour, Yang had been on Hsueh’s radar since playing in the HuaNan Cup
HARD TO SAY GOODBYE: After Coco Gauff dispatched Belinda Bencic in the fourth round, she wrote ‘RIP TikTok USA’ and drew a broken heart on a television camera lens Defending champion Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while compatriot Chan Hao-ching on Saturday dominated her opponents in the second round, as world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka swept into the quarter-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia toppled Hungary’s Timea Babos and Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US 6-4, 6-3, hitting 24 winners and converting three of seven break points in 1 hour, 18 minutes at 1573 Arena. Although rivals at last year’s Australian Open — where Hsieh and Belgium’s Elise Mertens beat Ostapenko and Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok 6-1, 7-5
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