A look ahead at the weekend games, cricket, football and any other news in sports. After an eventful friday congratulations must go out to the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William on their marriage. But the weekends football also promises a lot a big game between Manchester United and Arsenal. Manchester United completely dominated Schalke 04 and deserved their victory and will be hopping for a similar performance against Arsenal. Arsenal are struggling defensively and that will need to change in order for them to beat Manchester United. United’s attack is going brilliantly and peaking as per usual at the latter stages of the season. United have a lot of options for their team but my guess is: Van dersar, Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand, Rafael, Park, Carrick, Scholes, Valencia, Berbatov, Rooney. Manchester United also have anderson, Nani, Smalling, Owen, Hernandez to choose from but i think that the premier league top scorer will start with Rooney. must win for both teams as far as the Title is concerned.
Arsenal will have to combat United’s Attack and also break through their formidable defence. Arsenal's potential team to face United: Lehman, Eboue, Koschielny, Djourou, Clichy, Nasri, Fabregas, Wilshere, Walcott, Arshavin, Van Persie.
Other games in the Premier League this week are Manchester City against West Ham, City’s fight for Europe continues and will expect to win the game this weekend. The captain is injured but that shouldn’t matter in this game, City will have plenty of chances to score if they play anywhere near their best. West Ham’s main threat must be Denba Ba and Carlton Cole he has a good eye for goal and could cause an upset. Also this week sees the return of Andy Carrol to Newcastle, can he score against his old club? Liverpool are in good form recently under King Kenny and will hope to beat Newcastle. Liverpool have a fielded a slightly younger side in recent weeks and it will be interesting to see if the same happens today. Stephen Ireland is out injured for the season and Captain Nolan is expected to return. Possible Liverpool team to play against Newcastle: Reina, Robinson, Carragher, Skrtel, Flanagan, Cole,Lucas,Spearing, Kuyt, Carrol, Suarez.
Just the one change to the team is what i would expect.
Possible Newcastle team: Harper, Simpson, Williamson, Coloccini, Enrique, Barton, Tiote, Guitirrez, Lovenkrands and Ameobi. Harper Returns after injury and with No ireland a place is up for grabs.
The other big game this week is between Chelsea and Tottenham. Chelsea jump over Arsenal in the table and will be looking to do the same to Man United, although unlikely. Chelsea’s Malouda is in good form an hopefully can score against local rivals Tottenham. Fernando Torres has finally Bagged his first goal but does not look threatening but maybe able to get his second goal against Spurs. Tottenham are doing well this year, and have demonstrated this in the champions league. Huddleston, Bale and van der vart will be tottenham’s threat but what kind of game is Gomes going to have, a good one and Tottenham will fancy their chances a bad one and Tottenham will have to fight very hard. Possible Tottenham Team: Gomes, Kaboul, Gallas, Akotto, Van der Vart, Huddleston, Modric, Bale, Defoe and Pavlyuchenko and the possible Chelsea team is : Cech, Ivanovic, Terry, Luiz, Cole, Molouda, Lampard, Essien, Kalou, Drogba, Anelka. Certainly a strong team on both sides and an early breakthrough will be key.
Onto Cricket now and Lancashire edged closer to victory over Sussex but couldn’t get the last wicket to secure victory and the match was tied. Panesar doing a similar thing to Lancashire as he did to Australia. 17 not out from 66 balls helping Sussex draw. Saj Mahmood was taken out of the attack after two beamers, one hitting Ed Joyce on the shoulder. Gary Keedy was brilliant picking up 8 wickets in the match and Glen Chapple got 6. Goodwin, Joyce and Arif all got centuries for Sussex and Nash got a 50. It was a game Lancashire should have won after the position they got into. If Saj Mahmood had been able to bowl surely he would have cleaned up Panesar. Lancashire 590 vs Sussex 290 and 459/9 dec.
Middlesex hammered Surrey by an innings and 42 runs.Dexter and Simpson both got centuries in Middlesex’s 1st ans only innings but Batty picked up 5 wickets stopping the score from being even bigger. The only resistance from the surrey batting was Maynard 98 and Brown 47 were the only significant run scorers in surrey’s 1st innings score of 203. In their second innings England’s steve Davies who got 94 was the main run scorer couldn’t do enough to get the draw. Middlesex wicket takers were Finn who got 4 and Roland Jones who got 6 in the match. Middlesex 445 vs surrey 200 and 201
Warwickshire against Durham looked a very close game after the 1st innings both sides getting bowled out well after passing 400. But a second innings disaster from Warwickshire allowed Durham to comfortably win the match. Blackwell and Viento both got 100’s for Durham and Porterfield, Troughton and Woakes all got 50’s for Warwickshire. Wicket takers were Onions who got 6 wickets for Durham and Brathwaite also got 6. For Warwickshire wicket takers were Woakes and Rankin who both got 3. Warwickshire 1st innings 429 and 2nd innings 137 Durham 1st Innings 465 and 102/2.
So Lancashire top the county championship and in terms of performance rightly so. They have played well and seem to have the best all round side.
IPL things remains the same really but a very poor performance from Tendulkar’s side Mumbai as they scramble to 94/8
and see their total knocked of by Rajastan after 18.1 overs and the loss of 3 wickets. Mumbai top the table with a game in hand and with the best bowler and batsmen in IPL 2011 so far it’s quite obvious why.
Next Blog coming soon....
