Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho heaped praise on Gareth Bale after the Welsh winger scored in Monday’s 4-1 victory against Wycombe Wanderers in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
Bale started for the first time since Dec. 23 last year and netted the equalizer in first-half stoppage-time after Fred Onyedinma had given the Championship side a shock lead.
Bale, 31, has struggled for form and fitness, but looked sharp in completing his first 90 minutes since returning on loan from Real Madrid.
Photo: AFP
“He was good. Good movements, one against one, beating people, attacking, creating chances, scoring a goal,” Mourinho told reporters. “I never felt he could not play 90 minutes, I never felt I needed to change him.”
Mourinho made 10 changes to the side who beat Sheffield United in their previous game, but brought on first-team regulars Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Tanguy Ndombele as they chased the win in the second half.
Harry Winks put Spurs ahead in the 86th minute before Ndombele struck twice to book their spot in the fifth round.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Mourinho said that Spurs would not sacrifice the Europa League or FA Cup competitions, despite a crowded fixture schedule, and were determined to compete in all competitions.
“Even when we had to play four matches in one week and people thought we were going to give away Europa League or Carabao Cup we didn’t,” Mourinho told the BBC. “Today we brought the whole squad — only Hugo Lloris stayed at home. February we have to play three competitions with FA Cup and then Europa League. Of course it will be very hard, but we have to try.”
PREMIER LEAGUE
AFP, LONDON
Frank Lampard expressed his disappointment at not being given time to succeed after being sacked by Chelsea on Monday, with former Paris Saint-Germain boss Thomas Tuchel set to take over at Stamford Bridge.
Lampard led Chelsea to a fourth-placed Premier League finish and the FA Cup final in his first season in charge.
However, he failed to match much greater expectations this season.
A run of five defeats in their past eight Premier League matches has seen Chelsea slip to ninth.
“It has been a huge privilege and an honor to manage Chelsea, a club that has been a big part of my life for so long,” Lampard said in a statement posted on his Instagram account. “I am disappointed not to have had the time this season to take the club forward and bring it to the next level.”
LA LIGA
AP, MADRID
Raul Garcia on Monday scored twice as Athletic Bilbao maintained their recent impressive run by routing Getafe 5-1 in La Liga.
Yeray Alvarez, Alex Berenguer and Oscar de Marcos also scored for Athletic.
The home victory against Getafe left Athletic in ninth place, closer to the qualification spots for European competitions.
Getafe, who are 13th, opened the scoring through Marc Cucurella in the first minute, but were down 3-1 by halftime.
ASIAN SOCCER
Reuters
The highest court in sports has ruled that a third party improperly tried to influence the Asian Football Confederation’s election of a female delegate to the FIFA Council in 2019 by trying to persuade one of the candidates not to run.
Mariyam Mohamed of the Maldives, who lost the election to Bangladeshi incumbent Mahfuza Akhter Kiron, last year launched two appeals against the election result at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The ruling partially upheld her complaints, holding that the election had been subject to “third-party interference” and that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) failed to protect its election from gender discrimination.
It also ruled that the AFC’s Electoral Committee was wrong to refuse to investigate Mohamed’s complaint and that the AFC Disciplinary and Ethics Committee’s decision not to investigate her claims in a timely manner “resulted in a denial of justice.”
However, the ruling only partially upheld Mohamed’s appeals, as it did not order the annulment of the results and the restaging of the election.
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