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Posts Tagged ‘Preston North End FC’
Steffen Iversen rolled back the years as the former Tottenham striker scored on his debut to hand Crystal Palace a vital win over rock bottom Preston.
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West Brom moved to within two points of Newcastle United after edging past Preston in this topsy turvy encounter at the Hawthorns.
The first half produced five goals as both defences found it hard to establish some solidity. Ben Watson and Chris Brunt put the Baggies two goals to the good only for Sean St Ledger to pull a goal back. Much admired West Brom midfielder Graham Dorrans then restored the home sides lead only for Neil Mellor to score just before the break.
The second half saw Roberto Di Matteo’s side hold firm for all three points and sees them open up an eight point lead over third placed Nottingham Forest.
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West Brom 1-0 Preston (Watson)
Peter Lovenkrands put Newcastle ahead within three minutes of kick-off at St James’ Park, the Danish International’s eighth goal in his last eight games. Kevin Nolan added a second after the restart, his 12 goal of the season as the Toon Army totally dominated proceedings against Preston.
Ryan Taylor scored a third in the dying moments of the game making it 17 games unbeaten at home and took Chris Hughton’s side five points clear at the top of the Championship.
Newcastle United have now lost just once in their last 19 league matches and look very well placed to accomplish an instant return to the top tier.
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Preston ran out winners over an improving Ipswich side thanks chiefly to a magnificent display by Manchester United’s on loan striker Daniel Wellbeck.
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Sir Alex’s son finds himself gainfully employed once again.
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Preston North End hammered Colchester United with Jon Parkin doing the most damage scoring a hat-trick.
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Was it a barnstorming game or a damp squib? Who had a ‘mare’ and who was on the money? You decide with our lovely cut and paste thingy! [Read the rest of this entry »]
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After all, David Nugent has demonstrated that he’s more than capable of scoring against Championship opposition, as the striker’s eighteen goals for Preston last season will testify. This campaign has been an entirely different kettle of fish, with the player either injured, unfit or out of favour with Harry Redknapp, who has seemed willing to farm him out on loan.
However, The News is reporting that the former Bury striker is upbeat ahead of his team’s semi-final clash with West Brom on Saturday. With Jermain Defoe cup-tied, will the England international (!) get the chance to impress on a big stage?
‘I want to prove I’m good enough for the Premier League. I want to show how good I am.
‘I don’t feel I’ve given enough to this football club yet so this is my time to show what I can do.
‘I’ve got the buzz again and it’s going to be nice to be involved on Saturday.
‘We’ve got a great chance of winning and hopefully I can help.’
As Michael Ricketts will testify, it takes a lot for a striker to play at the top level every season, especially with confidence such a factor. However, Redknapp must surely be considering Nugent to play some kind of role in the game as it’s otherwise difficult to see where the Pompey goals are likely to come from. Baros has yet to open his account for the south coast club, while Kanu has also had an indifferent season.
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Fans of Preston North End can consider themselves unlucky not to be in Monday’s FA Cup quarter final draw. Their team did them proud against Portsmouth on Sunday and, if it hadn’t been for some inspired goalkeeping from David James, they surely would have gone on to win the match rather than lose to an injury-time own goal. The Times reports that Pompey manager Harry Redknapp cannot speak highly enough of his shot-stopper, who he thinks should be nailed-on for World Cup 2010.
“He is different class,” Redknapp said. “Hopefully, the England recall will help him to take his game to even greater heights, but, for sure, he will play in the World Cup.
“In the last couple of weeks, he has been in great form, although I have to say ever since he walked into Portsmouth he has been in another league. He is such a perfectionist. He works hard on the training ground every day and he’s always studying videos of himself after every game. He’s as good a professional as I’ve come across.”
The Portsmouth manager expected that James would save Whaley’s 60th-minute penalty. “When they got the penalty, you are quite confident he is going to save it, he is that good,” he said. “You wouldn’t want anyone else in goal in that situation. He is so imposing that their player must have thought, ‘I’ve got to hit a really good penalty here to score’.”
While it’s often said that strikers win games, James has been invaluable to a Portsmouth team who seem to be going places this season. There’s a very real chance that they’ll make it to Wembley for the FA Cup final, while they’re well in the running to land a UEFA Cup place as well this season.
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Some more transfer heresy and hearsay….
Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is after Congolese defensive “wonderkid” Paul Jose Mpoklu but will have to beat off interest from Tottenham in the 15-year-old. (Daily Mirror)
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has promised that he’ll be staying at Arsenal for twenty more years. (Daily Star)
…Russsian fat cat billionaire Alisher Usmanov has moved one step closer to gobbling up the Gunners after he increased his holding in the club. (Daily Express)
Chelsea’s 18-year-old Israeli striker Ben Sahar will be shipped off to Championship side Sheffield Wednesday on-loan. (Daily Mirror)
Newcastle gaffer Kevin Keegan has drawn up a wish-list of players that he wants to bring to St James’ park. Included in this list is Man United defender Wes Brown, Chelsea left-back Wayne Bridge and West Ham’s striker Dean Ashton. Whether he can actually bag any of these players remains an open question, but KK has decided to put this on the back-burner until safety is secured. (The Sun)
Ex-Fulham boss Chris Coleman could return to English football by taking the Coventry City hot seat. (Daily Express)
Reading manager Steve Coppell is after the jewel in the MLS crown, 18-year-old US international striker Jozy Altidore. However, poaching the youngster from New York Red Bulls will be tough for Reading, as Real Madrid are also after the youngster. (Daily Mirror)
Preston manager Alan Irvine wants striker David Nugent to leave his belly flop of a career move at Portsmouth and return to Deepdale. (Daily Star)
West Ham United have sent left back Joe Widdowson to Rotherham for a month. He has already been on loan at Carlisle earlier in the season and has been sent to Rotherham for more first team experience. (Various)
Ac Milan’s legendary goal-bagging striker Ronaldo is facing more problems connected to his injured left knee. “The Phenomenon” is worried that the fact that his knees are completely buggered may have an adverse effect on getting a top up on his current Milan contract which runs out in the summer. (The Independent)
Sol Campbell won the FA Cup twice with Arsenal and he might not get a better chance to land a hat-trick of winner’s medals with Portsmouth this season. Pompey have what seems like a favourable last 16 draw at Deepdale on Sunday, although Soccernet reports that the England defender is warning his team-mates against complacency if they want to progress.
Campbell says: ‘A lot of guys coming from playing abroad are used to having it easy in cup games against lower league teams.
‘So it is up to us English players to put them right and make sure they know it’s not that way here. Like Ipswich and Plymouth in the previous rounds, Preston will be chasing around trying to make life difficult for us.
‘We’ve had to rely on David James making some great saves but we can’t keep doing that and we’ve got to set our stall out right, match the opposition in the hard work department and then, hopefully, making our ability count.
‘It is nice to have a cup run at this stage of the season when the team is doing well in the league. You never know where it might lead.’
Victory on Sunday will give Harry Redknapp’s men a very real opportunity of making it to Wembley, especially with one of Manchester United or Arsenal bowing out at this stage. Can the likes of Muntari and Utaka return and make the necessary impact for the Hampshire club?
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Transfer malarkey and all that jazz…
Arsenal’s bench warming midfield elder statesman Gilberto has signalled that he may be off soon after declaring that he doesn’t have a future at the North London club. (Various)
Chelsea will bag Ghana midfielder Anthony Annan for the cheap as chips price of £1m in the summer. (The Sun)
Manchester United have revealed the signing of the 18 year old Brazilian holding midfielder Rodrigo Possebon from Sport Club Internacional only now. (Various)
…While United’s wonder winger Christiano Ronaldo is angling for a fat Old Trafford pay rise after claiming that he’d like to play in Spain one day, thus wetting Real Madrid’s appetite. (Guardian)
It wasn’t long ago that there was a bit of a scramble for David Nugent, and the winners of that scramble, Portsmouth, now cannot give him away! Preston North End boss Alan Irvine is now looking to take him back on loan. (Various)
Arsenal’s Swiss defender Johan Djourou is being trailed by FC Zurich who want to bag a loan deal for the player. (Daily Star)
Aston Villa’s geek-chic gaffer Martin O’Neill hasn’t given up on American ‘keeper Brad Guzan, and will try to nab him again this summer. O’Neill is reportedly willing to splurge around £2m. (Daily Mirror)
Blackburn are sniffing around Charlton’s Ivorian striker Kissi Richmond. (Daily Mirror)
Birmingham boss Alex McLeish is set to move for Senegal’s captain Lamin Diatta, and want to get the defender on loan for the remainder of the season. (Daily Mirror)
Moyes and Ferguson are two bookends, at utterly separate stages of their career, but they are the two shining lights of Scottish management. Whereas Sir Alex has managed five clubs; East Stirlingshire, St Mirren Aberdeen, Scotland, and Manchester United – Moyes has managed just two Preston North End and Everton – and at both clubs he has been on the precipice of success – nearly taking Preston North End up to the Premier League, and nearly ushering Everton into the Champions League but falling to Villarreal in the Champions League qualifying stage. On the other hand we have Sir Alex Ferguson, a treble winner with Manchester United who also can boast 9 league championships, and the unique facts that he is the only manager to win three successive league titles with the same club (98-99,99-00,00-01), as well as being the only manager to win the FA Cup five times. This man literally has trophies coming out of every orifice.
There is one thing that the two men share, they are both fierce Scots. In his first(!) managerial role at East Stirlingshire, Bobby McCulley said that he’d: “never been afraid of anyone before but Ferguson was a frightening bastard from the start.”, and Moyes also has this pant-wetting intensity.
Moyes was acclaimed as the greatest ‘pound-for-pound’ manager in the top flight by Times writer Martin Samuel, but is a comparison with Ferguson fair? Is it possible to compare someone who pulled United’s socks up in the early 90′s with someone who is attempting to do the same with Everton fifteen years later – with the super-rich Big Four Oligarchy sitting in his way?
Surely a comparison with the earlier Alex Ferguson (sans ‘Sir’), the tough manager of Aberdeen, trying to break another oligarchy, that of the Old Firm and their choke hold on Scottish Football is a better one. Even there though, Moyes falters, the one thing missing from his time at Everton is a trophy. He has done magnificently, and been recognised by the LMA as manager of the year in 02-03, and again in 04-05, when his “People’s Club” finished a heady fourth. For Evertonian’s “The Moyesiah” has been distilled brilliance, Toffee fans have for so long been snow-blind by constant relegation scrapes, and Moyes has washed away all those worries – but Everton are still work in progress, still grasping for a trophy. When Alex Ferguson won the European Cup Winners’ Cup with Aberdeen he said that he now felt that “he’d done something worthwhile with his life” – how long before David feels the same?
Tagged Under: aberdeen, east stirlingshire, Everton FC, ferguson, Manchester United, moyes, Preston North End FC, scotland, st mirren
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The second half of today’s transfer rumours haul…
Reading’s Steve Coppell will prise open his wallet and shell out £700,000 on Czech Republic international midfielder Marek Matejovsky. (Mirror)
Bolton’s Gary Megson wants to bag Real Madrid’s Javier Saviola and hopes his arrival will paper over the cracks of Nicolas Anelka’s iminent departure. (various)
…And Chelsea are leading the chase for Anelka but there is a possible sticking point with Chelsea’s valuation of £11m being short of Bolton’s £18m pricing. (Express)
Even though the press think that his days are numbered Liverpool boss Rafael Bentiez is still trailing transfer targets, he is looking to bag Porto defender Bruno Alves. (Mirror)
Manchester City are after Roma’s £16m-rated striker Amantino Mancini and they will offer the Italian club Rolando Bianchi as bait. (Mirror)
Preston boss Alan Irvine wants to land Everton’s young Icelandic midfielder Bjarni Vidarsson. (Lancashire Evening Post)
Blackburn’s defender Bruno Pezzoni is about to join Cologne despite only just breaking into the Blackburn team. (Mirror)
Honduras international midfielder Wilson Palacios will follow Steve Bruce from Birmingham to Wigan and become Brucie’s first signing. (Sky Sports)
…Meanwhile Birmingham manager Alex McLeish is stalking Tottenham’s Anthony Gardner and Manchester City’s Georgios Samaras. (Mirror)
…And Birmingham are also interested in bagging Swiss international full-back Ludovic Magnin from Stuttgart. (Sky Sports)
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Tagged Under: Birmingham blog | Birmingham transfer rumours, Blackburn FC, Bolton Sports blog | Bolton transfer rumours, Chelsea blog | Chelsea transfer rumours | chelsea news, Everton blog | Everton transfer rumours | Everton news, Liverpool blog | liverpool transfer rumours, Manchester City FC, Preston North End FC, Reading FC, Roma, Wigan blog | Wigan tranfer rumours | wigan news
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