Chelsea vs Manchester United - Player Ratings

David de Gea: Started the game off anxiously, failing to deal with crosses. But soon grew into the game, as it progressed. Wasn’t at fault for either of the goals. The Spaniard had an excellent shot-stopping match, as he made a couple of world-class saves, one to deny Mata the winner in the dying stages of the game.

Rafael da Silva: His fine form continued, after shutting out Malouda for the duration he was on the field. Got tight enough on most occasions and ensured that he was always going to come out on top.

Rio Ferdinand: A hot and cold afternoon for the England international. Was on the end of some great defending, but at times was responsible for the defensive vulnerabilities. He let David Luiz in to header the second goal, which came too a deflection off him, too easily.

Jonny Evans: Despite scoring an own goal, which he could do nothing about, he performed exceptionally well, showing why he is the future of Manchester United. It is remarkable watching the Evans of this season compared to last season, there has been a significant improvement. Was second to none in the air, and also denied Torres a goal late on.

Patrice Evra: Struggled to deal with Sturridge, as he easily whipped in a ball which subsequently led to Evans scoring an own goal. At times, positionally suspect. All of Chelsea’s three goals came from Evra’s failure in dealing with the danger. Torres whipped in the ball to Mata too easily and conceded a free kick, which resulted in the third goal. After a brief moment of consistency, Evra, once again, shows Sir Alex Ferguson why he needs to possibly invest in a left back, to add competition.

Antonio Valencia: Was hyped up, most expected him to run Bosingwa ragged, but he never t...

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Tricky Night Made Easy as Stoke pay penalties

Manchester United returned to the top of the table after beating Stoke City 2-0 at Old Trafford, while City fell to a Darron Gibson strike away at Goodison Park. Dimitar Berbatov and Javier converted one penalty each on either side of half time, and a United side going into the game without 14 first-team players looked comfortable throughout.

With De Gea sick and Lindegaard on crutches, Ben Amos got his Premier League debut for United, and luckily for him the defence kept Stoke at bay for most of the game. The backline consisting of Smalling, Evans, Rio and Evra managed to stop the threat of Crouch and Jones, and although the latter had a couple of shooting opportunities they often went high or wide.


Scholes and Carrick was paired in the middle for the second home game running, and the two pass-masters impressed throughout and controlled the game without seemingly breaking a sweat. The two of them completed 50 more passes(242) than the whole Stoke team(192), and the Ginger Prince seems back to full fitness completing 90 minutes of football for the first time since his return from retirement.

Carrick, Valencia and Park all had chances to score for United, but the deadlock was not to be broken until the Red Devils got a penalty on 38 minutes. Some neat passing by Scholes and Berba outside the area ended with Park getting fouled by Jermaine Pennant, and none other than Javier Hernandez stepped up to take the penalty. He aimed hard and low into his left-hand corner, and duly converted with aplomb.<...

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Stephan Lichtsteiner: A Force to Be Reckoned With

Just several weeks into the summer transfer window Juventus sealed the deal for Swiss defender Stephan Lichtsteiner from Lazio for a fee of 10 million euros. Although the other summer signing, Andrea Pirlo, has received most the praise so far this season, Lichtsteiner has arguably been the more consistent of the two. An incredible worker who just turned 28-years-old, Stephan Lichtsteiner has been so effective that his work down the right has become one of Juventus’ biggest weapons, both in defence and attack.

The presence of strong attacking full-backs is a crucial part to many of today’s successful teams. Look at Dani Alves at Barcelona or the Maicon at Inter. Juventus have been well known for some of the famous names that have donned their stripes over the years, but, not in recent times.
Prior to Calciopoli, Juventus were blessed to have Gianluca Zambrotta at right back. Originally a winger, Marcelo Lippi pushed him back into the position that he would never again change from. Since Zambrotta’s departure, Juve have cycled through various defenders in the outside position, and although a few proved to be talented players, none have made the impact on the position that the now 28-year-old Lichsteiner has in his short time at Torino.

The most obvious qualities of Lichtsteiner are his attacking abilities. Able to race down to the goal-line and beat his man, he can then back this up by whipping in fine crosses into the box. He is a strong player and excels at quick short passes moving in between defenders. Using one of the midfielders, he is nearly flawless with the give and go, often moving the ball from the defensive third into the attacking third with only a few passes. He also has great pace and control so much so...

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The Curious Case of Dimitar Berbatov

Love him or hate him, Dimitar Berbatov is the closest thing Manchester United fans have seen don the famous club colours since the great Eric Cantona.

The enigmatic striker swaggered confidently through the gates at Old Trafford for a cool £30.75million fee back in 2008, which is perhaps one of the reasons why the Bulgarian hitman has been forced to endure the wrath of so many critics. Berbatov has delivered 56 goals in 144 appearances for Manchester United - a ratio better than a goal every three games, so he has not been a disaster since joining the club by any stretch of the imagination.

Those that idolise him, will point to last season's return of 22 Barclays Premier League goals as a reason to stand by Berbatov - a feat that helped him to the 2010-11 Golden Boot, despite only playing a bit-part role for United in the second-half of the previous campaign. The same fans will also reminisce fondly about the hat-trick scored against Liverpool back in September 2010 — one of four occasions where Berbatov has finished up with the Manchester United match ball.

But despite his impressive goalscoring record, the talismanic striker has been forced to settle for a fringe role on the periphery of Sir Alex Ferguson's first-team this year, as he continues to feature primarily from the bench. The fact that Berbatov was omitted from Manchester United's UEFA Champions League final squad to face Barcelona at Wembley back in May, in favour of the much maligned Michael Owen, whose best days are surely behind him, speaks volumes about the player's current Old Trafford standing.

At best, Berbatov can be regarded as the reigning Barclays Premier League champions' fourth-choice striker - behind Wayne Rooney, Javier Hernandez, and Danny...

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A day in the life of a Liverpool Fan: Liverpool...

As some of you may know already, I went to watch the game against City yesterday, so I thought I'd make a short article of the day and my view on the game.

I woke up at about 8.45 AM with some excitement for the day ahead in Liverpool and the game that night. So I had no problem getting myself ready for the day even though I didnt have much sleep the night before because of excitement. We were off for Liverpool at about 11.30 AM once everyone had finished getting ready. The car was cramped it was an alright journey; good weather for a long drive and some decent music on the radio, we finally arrived in Liverpool City centre at about 2.30PM once we figured out where we were meeting some family of 2 of the friends I went with.

Once we had parked up we split up for a few hours, 3 of us went to look at shops while the other 2 went to meet their family. We headed into Liverpool One which is the main shopping area in the City centre. It is pretty funny actually, LFC shop is there and nearly direct opposite is Everton club shop. We looked round shops for a while and I bought a new Jacket for the night ahead. After a while we decided to go track down everyone else.

We found them a short time later in an Irish pub in the City centre; there was a good atmosphere in the pub (full of Liverpool fans) and we stopped there for a few drinks soaking up the atmosphere until we decided we wanted some food. We got some food then we decided we thought we best head to near the ground before traffic on the road got too busy.

We parked up about ten minutes walk from the ground at 6.15 giving us an hour and half to spare. We got directed to a pub on the way to the ground by people who live there who we had met up with and I will say this, the atmosphere was buzzing, everyone was up for the game and the closer it came to Kick off the more we started chanting Liverpool songs. We headed to the ground at about 7.30 giving us 15 minutes...

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