For this week's Euroscore Round Up we are off to Milan to see how champions Inter got on against Cagliari. It has been a week where the pressure at the top of the Premiership has grabbed the headlines. Plenty of goings on within the beautiful and not so beautiful game.Is it me or are things getting earlier every year? Adverts for Christmas start as soon as Summer finishes, Easter as soon as Christmas is over, and summer holidays likewise.
Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez has continued that trend with his television rant aimed
at Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Normally the mind game season doesn't start until the Premiership run-in but here we were on January 9th with full psychological warfare being declared.In fact that is a date you might want to keep in mind because it could well be the day that the top of the table starts to get even more interesting. Benitez went on television to verbalise in his best English what many of us football fans have mumbled under our breath for years.
His main points, or 'facts' as he called them, were built around his perception of how United's staff allegedly intimidate referees, and how the fixture list always seems to favour the Old Trafford team. Within minutes of his outburst ex-Premiership referee, now retired, Graham Poll spoke out in support of his comments.
Sure enough the fixture list does give United home advantage against the other top sides during the season's run-in. Sir Alex's response was to label Benitez's outburst as 'ridiculous' and that he 'is disturbed by something'. Clearly the mind game season is upon us. Famous past rants of course have seen Kevin Keegan, then manager of Newcastle United, lay into Ferguson in 1996 on radio before his side imploded and handed the title to, United. The simmering rivalry between Arsenal's Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex is also well documented.
EnglandSo Christmas gets earlier and now ranting managers have joined the trend. It should make Liverpool's visit to Old Trafford in March even more interesting.Unfortunately for Benitez, just as he was firing a verbal broadside, his table topping team misfired horribly away at Stoke City. The game ended in a dull 0-0 draw. Meanwhile Sir Alex's team responded with a thumping and significant 3-0 home win over Chelsea. Perhaps United's players are just more used to mind games than those of Liverpool.Elsewhere Arsenal finally broke down Bolton Wanderers with a late goal from Bendtner to win 1-0. Aston Villa won the Midland derby against rivals West Bromwich Albion 2-1. Wigan Athletic beat Spurs 1-0, a result that had Harry Redknapp publicly criticising his expensive Tottenham team.Everton beat Hull City, who are now in a painful run of defeats after their bright start, 2-0. It was a bad tempered affair that saw seven bookings. Newcastle United drew 2-2 at home with West Ham United who had ex-Newcastle star Craig Bellamy among the scorers.Liverpool stay top on 46, Chelsea 2nd on 42, United 3rd on 41 but with two games in hand.
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