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text-decoration:none; } img {border:none;} The Sport Review: “Chelsea
smash seven past Ispwich to set up Everton clash” plus 3 more- Chelsea smash seven past Ispwich to set up Everton clash - Federer’s 3rd Doha title signals his intent for Australian Open - Ballon d’Or 2010: Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta or Xavi? - Kenny Dalglish is perfectly suited to Liverpool role Chelsea smash seven past Ispwich to set up Everton clash Posted: 09 Jan 2011 04:15 PM PST FA CUP THIRD ROUND, 9 JANUARY 2011 Chelsea 7 Ipswich 0 Chelsea opened the defence of their FA Cup crown with a rampant display against Championship strugglers Ipswich. The Blues were in devastating form to put seven goals past a dismal Ipswich but Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti will be under no illusions that Sunday's performance turned the corner for his side. The pressure has built on the Italian following a dismal run of form with Chelsea having picked up just 10 points in the last 11 league games. Desperate for a morale boosting victory, Chelsea fielded a strong side with a blend of youth and experience. The opening exchanges were frosty and for half an hour manager-less Ipswich held their own and forced Chelsea wide. However, in the 32nd minute the building pressure was too much for the Tractor Boy's back line as Salomon Kalou slid home after a Nicolas Anelka shot had trickled under Martin Fulop. Within 60 seconds Chelsea had doubled their lead when José Bosingwa delivered a low wicked cross from the right for Daniel Sturridge to flick the ball past the despairing goalkeeper. The tie was all but wrapped up on 41 minutes when the visitors gifted Chelsea a third. Frank Lampard's free-kick was headed in by Carlos Edwards for an own goal that lifted the tension from around the ground. Chelsea started the second half just as menacingly as the impressive Anelka beat a couple of defenders on the right of the box to fire a low drive into the bottom left corner for his first goal since November. Ancelotti's side continued to heap misery on Ipswich as Sturridge marked his 40th appearance for the club with a sensational strike on 53 minutes, turning inside the box to curl a delicious shot into the roof of the net. Lampard then marked his impressive return to form with two goals in two minutes. His first coming on 78 minutes with a signature 18-yard drive from the edge of the area. And within a minute the talisman had struck again, smashing in Branislav Ivanović's clever cut back. The rout was complete but Ancelotti tried not to get carried away after the final whistle. He said: “Obviously we need to give the same performance against Blackburn but with this victory we can improve our confidence.” Ancelotti’s men will travel to Everton for their fourth round tie after the draw was made earlier on Sunday. Ipswich caretaker boss Ian McParland said: “I live in the real world. We are in a bit of shock from the manager going and unfortunately we took a real thrashing. “For half an hour we were doing OK and in the game but then we gave them three bad goals. But let’s not forget who we were playing against.” Asked about the possible replacement for Roy Keane, he replied: “Whoever he is, he has a very tough job.” Federer’s 3rd Doha title signals his intent for Australian Open Posted: 09 Jan 2011 02:48 PM PST The first month of the tennis season is always a challenging one. The run-in to the first grand slam is like a sprint up the side of a mountain. No sooner are Christmas and New Year out of the way than the rigours of the Australian summer—hot, humid and, this year, drenched by appalling tropical storms—summon tennis's protagonists Down Under. Already, three ATP tournaments and a handful of exhibition events have been and gone. These have given the players a chance to practise the new shots, new tactics and new ambitions they have developed over the all-too-brief off-season. They have also provided a chance to throw down the gauntlet ahead of the big Melbourne prize. Of the exhibitions, the Hopman Cup has offered the most interesting pointers to form, featuring as it did two of the top five men in the world in their only pre-Australian competition. Andy Murray, as last year, chose the Perth-based event for his preparations, and defeated John Isner, Nicolas Mahut and Polito Starace all in straight sets. But he did not get the chance to play the top dog in the tournament, world No3 Novak Djokovic, who also won all his Perth matches. With neither Serbia nor GB reaching the playoffs, there was no head-to-head confrontation between two potential challengers for the Australian title. Murray was a finalist last year and Djokovic won his only Slam thus far in Melbourne in 2008. So what about the other top contenders? World No6 Tomas Berdych was the top seed in the Chennai 250 in India but fell to the eventual winner, Stanislas Wawrinka. This was a fascinating result, partly because the Swiss was runner-up last year to Marin Cilic—who fell in the first round—but also because he has recently announced a once-and-for-all assault on his tennis career. Wawrinka's first step, following a first round exit at Wimbledon, was to drop his life-long coach and join forces with Peter Lundgren. He subsequently reached his first grand slam quarter-final at the US Open and has now won only his third ATP title—his first on hard courts. With the scalps of Murray in New York and Berdych in Chennai, it may be that the powerful Wawrinka has found a natural home on the pacy hard courts rather than on his traditional clay stomping ground. In Brisbane, a very strong field was headed by two top-ten stalwarts. Andy Roddick, on a new fitness regime, has indicated his intention to use his top-eight ranking for a final assault on a slam title. He won the Brisbane title last year against Radek Stepanek. This year, however, he faced the formidable frame of Robin Soderling, still buoyed up by his end-of-season triumph in his first Masters in Paris. He, too, started his off-season training very early, concentrating on improving his aggressive net game. The Swede's hard-work and determination over the last two years has produced a constant rise in the rankings, and his win over Roddick, without facing a break point, takes him above Murray to No4 in the rankings. Soderling is a man on a mission, and he could cause a few more upsets before the Australian Open series is done. And so to the crème-de-la-crème, and they were holed up in the glamorous surroundings of the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in the Qatari capital of Doha. It is a location that oozes wealth: no surprise, then, that the prize money tops a million dollars, more than the combined offerings of Chennai and Brisbane. No surprise, either, that the dry, comfortable heat of the Gulf drew a class field: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal ably supported by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nikolay Davydenko. Many expected a fifth meeting in as many weeks between the top two seeds. Federer and Nadal had met at the end of November in the World Tour Finals, in two charity exhibitions and in the final of an exho tournament in Abu Dhabi last week. But a Doha match-up was not to be. Nadal's progress was severely hampered by the flu—he lost an uncharacteristic 6-0 set before beating Lukas Lacko in the second round. Then, in a repeat of last year's final, he was put to the sword by Davydenko, 6-2, 6-3. Nadal went on to defend his doubles title, but has opted to stay in Doha to recover for a few days rather than fly immediately to Melbourne. Federer, too, looked and sounded as though he had a head-cold, but it certainly did not impact on his performance. Initially, he looked a little rusty—he had, after all, opted to take very little time off between his end-of-season string of wins and the Doha event. But his golden racket was soon burnished by wins over the young Dutch talent of Thomas Schoore, close friend Marco Chiudinelli and the Davis Cup-winning Viktor Troicki. Next, the returning heavyweight, Tsonga, was on the receiving end of an increasingly confident Federer, before Davydenko faced the Swiss for the 17th time in their careers. The Russian beat Federer in the Doha semis last year, and so was bidding to become the only man to beat both Federer and Nadal three times in a single tournament: as well as Doha last year, he had pulled off the feat at the 2009 WTFs. Neither Federer nor Davydenko had dropped a set prior to the final, but Federer had not so much as faced a deuce on his serve in his previous two matches. Unfortunately for Davydenko, the Swiss maintained that record through the entire final, too. Davydenko thrives in dry, fast conditions that suit his flat, crisp ground strokes, his precise tactics, and early striking of the ball. In Federer, though, he faced a player even more adept at penetrating drives and acute angled put-aways to both wings. The two men have also introduced a new wide, swinging serve that drags the receiver outside the court to open the attack for an angled winner. Their combined talents produced a scintillating display of tennis played at high pace and with high focus. Almost every ball was taken on the rise and returned to the lines, and both men moved like lightening around their territory. But there never seemed any doubt about the conclusion. Few men manage to combine the appearance of leisurely calm with hungry intent quite as well as Federer, and the Swiss was clearly hungry. His guard did not drop and his focus did not stray—though he was a little too casual in a couple of cheeky drop-shot attempts. From the moment he broke Davydenko's first service game to the conclusion of the match, 6-3 6-4, with a love service game, this was impressive tennis: beautifully chilling. So Federer, already on his way to Australia before the day was finished, took his third Doha title, his 67th title overall, and looks set to start 2011 much as he ended 2010: aiming to be the best in the world. The proof will be in Melbourne, but the odds must be shortening by the day for a repeat of last year's victory Down Under. Ballon d’Or 2010: Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta or Xavi? Posted: 09 Jan 2011 02:25 PM PST One of the Barcelona trio of Xavi, Lionel Messi and Andrés Iniesta will on Monday be named as the player of the year at the Fifa Ballon d’Or award ceremony in Zurich. This year’s prize is the result of the merging of the the Fifa World Player of the Year, which is voted for by players and coaches, and the Ballon d'Or, which was awarded by journalists via France Football magazine. The award was previously only voted for by journalists but for the first time the voting committee now includes all the managers and captains of the 208 national sides affiliated to Fifa. It is only the third time that all three nominees for the award have come from the same club, and early reports suggest Iniesta, who scored the extra-time goal that brought Spain its first World Cup title in the final against the Netherlands last July, is the front-runner to win the prize. In what will be the 55th edition of the award, Messi—last year’s winner—is understood to be have been pipped to the accolade this time around by one of his Barcelona team-mates after the 23-year-old endured a quiet World Cup with Argentina. The last three awards after World Cup years have all gone to players who played an integral part in their national side’s triumph on the world stage. Zinedine Zidane won the 1998 award after leading France to that year’s World Cup on home soil and 2002 saw Ronaldo be crowned winner after Brazil’s success in South Korea and Japan. Most recently, the 2006 World Cup winning captain Fabio Cannavaro won the award after triumphing with Italy in Germany. Uefa president and two-time Ballon d’Or winner Michel Platini said midfielder Xavi is his first choice for this year’s crown. He said: “I would give it to Xavi, then Sneijder, who but for one goal would have won everything [having won the Champions League, Serie A title and Italian Cup last season], and then Iniesta. “It’s not fair that the Inter player is not amongst the top three. The best players are Messi and Cristiano [Ronaldo] but the World Cup comes first.” Monday’s ceremony will also see the naming of the manager of the year, with Barcelona’s Pep Guardiola, Real Madrid’s José Mourinho and Spain’s World Cup winning coach Vicente del Bosque in contention this year. Mourinho won his place on the short-list by guiding his Inter Milan side to an historic treble last season, while Guardiola led Barcelona to their second consecutive Spanish League title before Del Bosque coached Spain to World Cup glory in South Africa. Kenny Dalglish is perfectly suited to Liverpool role Posted: 09 Jan 2011 04:59 AM PST Six months after it began, Roy Hodgson's time as the manager of Liverpool has come to an end following a dire spell of results going into the new year. In a statement issued by the club announcing the departure, Hodgson said: "I am very sad not to have been able to put my stamp on the squad, to be given the time to bring new players into the club in this transfer window," Liverpool supporters will have been thankful Hodgson was not granted his request. The majority of the Anfield faithful had quickly grown tired of his regressive tactics and defeatist attitude, whilst his small dip into the transfer market was far from successful, with only Raul Meireles showing signs of being a success on Merseyside. Many on the Kop believed Hodgson to be attempting to lower ambitions at the club, after all his predecessor Rafael Benitez had been fired primarily because the club failed to qualify for the Champions League – come January Hodgson was talking about the importance of getting into the top half of the table – a clear lowering of expectations over such a short period. Hodgson is not a bad manager, far from it. But he is not a manager equipped to deal with the pressure and expectation that comes with being in charge of Liverpool. His shaky relationship with Liverpool's supporters was a sign of how far out of touch he was with the demands placed upon the Liverpool boss by the club’s fans. The future, or at least the short-term future, for Liverpool is former boss and club legend Kenny Dalglish, who guided the club to three league titles during his time in the dugout at Anfield. The appointment comes at a crucial time for Liverpool, with a clash with Manchester United in the FA Cup being Dalglish's first game, closely followed by a trip to Blackpool and a Merseyside derby against Everton at Anfield. The players will likely receive a crucial boost from the appointment of Dalglish ahead of such an important run of fixtures. With his status at the club comes instant respect from everyone surrounding it, something which will be vital for the Scot going into a difficult run of games. His critics have suggested he has been out of the game too long, noting that his last permanent managerial position, at Newcastle United, was over a decade ago. But Dalglish has been involved at Anfield for over a year as academy ambassador, attending every home game and multiple trips on the road. He knows, more than anyone, the ins and outs of Liverpool Football Club and thus is perfectly suited to the role. In the short term Dalglish is the best appointment for Liverpool. It was widely recognised the club could not continue on under Hodgson, especially since his relationship broke down with the fans following the Reds' loss to Wolves, which left him in the unenviable position of having Anfield's vocal support turned against him, with one poll suggesting 95 per cent wanted the former Fulham boss fired. The issue for Liverpool comes at the end of the season. Fenway Sports Group, the owners of the club, are set to search for a long-term replacement to be appointed in the summer, someone who has the same vision as them for the club going forward. But should Dalglish be a success in his spell as manager then FSG are left with a big decision to make – bring in their own man or stick with the man the Kop proudly call their King. You are subscribed to email updates from The Sport Review To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. 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