Michael Dawson’s first-half header gave Hull City a 1-0 victory over Liverpool on Tuesday that pushed the northeast club closer to English Premier League survival.
The Hull captain timed his move to perfection to power home a cross from Ahmed Elmohamady in the 37th minute.
“In that moment, we didn’t defend well enough,” Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers said on the club’s Web site. “Where it counts in that final third we just couldn’t make the breakthrough. The players put great energy into the game, they worked very hard, but our struggles tonight were what they have been for a big part of the season in terms of creativity and scoring goals.”
The loss was a further blow to Liverpool’s hopes of qualifying for the UEFA Champions League for a second successive season. Liverpool are seven points behind Manchester United, who are fourth in the final qualification spot for Europe’s elite competition.
“We wanted to be in that top four, but it was always going to be very, very difficult for us with how the season mapped itself out with the squad, injuries and whatnot,” Rodgers said. “We can’t take away we’re fighting for a great club, and we’re looking now to get the pace and momentum we can take through into next season.”
The win moved Hull four points clear of the relegation zone with four games to play.
Hull were unrecognizable from the side whose run of six games without a win looked to make the team relegation certainties as recently as last week.
Liverpool, without captain Steven Gerrard, who manager Brendan Rodgers indicated was being rested for the increasingly inconsequential run-in, looked rudderless and ill-equipped to cope with the Hull’s attacking intent.
The nervy last few minutes saw Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling shoot straight at Harper, while Tom Huddlestone could have sealed it for Hull with a long-range strike which flashed just wide before the final whistle sparked jubilation.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
RSS