Man United plan high profile midweek friendlies to compensate for no European football [Independent]

Are Manchester United set to play some of the biggest teams in Europe after all this season?

The Independent has an interesting report in their Tuesday paper, in which the notion is tabled that Man United may be about the play a series of high profile midweek friendlies to compensate for no European football.

Unfortunately the report fails to specify which teams could be courted to play the Red Devils, and it’s unclear whether those opponents would be European based or, alternatively, from further afield.

Moreover, the Independent also detail how United could walk into big problems with UEFA over their plan to play these friendlies.

Read More

Cristiano Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United may happen in two years [Guillem Balague]

Sky Sports’ Spanish insider Guillem Balague gave an interesting update on the likelihood of Cristiano Ronaldo leaving Real Madrid to rejoin Manchester United on Monday night.

Balague was on Sky’s Revista de La Liga show, when the topic of Ronaldo’s mooted return to Old Trafford came up.

Rather than dismiss the story out of hand, Balague voiced his understanding that the Portuguese star does want to go back to Manchester, however the issue is timing.

Balague said:

It is quite clear that Manchester United are letting all this continue because they are interested in Cristiano Ronaldo.

Cristiano Ronaldo dreams and would like to go back to Manchester United. It’s just the timing which I think people are getting wrong.

People want this to happen in January, if possible. It’s not going to happen. In the summer? I don’t think it’s going to happen. Real Madrid have got no intention whatsoever of selling Cristiano Ronaldo next summer.

In two years’ time I would say yes, that is possibly the time when he will be 31 going on 32, for Real Madrid to say: ‘OK, if we can cash in on him, brilliant. He has done a lot for us, but that’s it, time to move on.

I don’t think it’s going to happen this summer. People will have to be a little bit more patient.

Read More

Possible Liverpool Lineup To Travel To Switzerland: Suso Set To Start, Manquillo & Sterling Remain In The Lineup

Liverpool travel to Switzerland to face FC Basel on Matchday 2 of the UEFA Champions League 2014 after having been pegged back by a Phil Jagielka strike in the Merseyside Derby last weekend.

Here is a look at how the Reds may line-up against the Swiss giants:

Simon Mignolet

An unfortunate afternoon for the Belgian in goal against Everton as a solid performance between the sticks was ruined with an absolute screamer of a goal in the dying minutes of the game. Still dividing opinion at amongst the faithful at Anfield because of his indecisive command over crosses and set-pieces, Mignolet is Liverpool’s number 1 goal-keeper.

Javier Manquillo

Defensively solid, Manquillo dealt with everything thrown at him by the likes of Baines, Mirallas and McGeady with ease in the derby. The young Spaniard has a lot more that he can offer in attack especially with the crossing ability he possesses.

Martin Skrtel

The Slovakian was faultless all afternoon against Everton. Reminding the fans why his still one of the best defenders in the league, Skrtel’s return to the line-up adds athleticism and steel to the defence. Strong in the air and uncompromising in a tackle, Liverpool fans will hope their Slovakian can repeat his Derby performance against Basel.

Dejan Lovren

The Croatian centre-half had a solid game at the heart of the Liverpool defence against Everton. There was nothing much anyone could do to stop Phil Jagielka’s strike late on. Lovren will be expected to repeat his performance if not better it against Basel in the Champions League.

Alberto Moreno

After having his hands full with the physically imposing Romelu Lukaku all derby, Moreno would want nothing more than to take the pitch mid-week and show the Reds fans what he is all about. Occasionally fragile in defence, Moreno’s work-rate down the left is a key component to the Liverpool side.

Steven Gerrard

If the Merseyside Derby was Steven Gerrard’s fixture, the Champions League is his competition. It would take a very brave man to put it past the Liverpool skipper to better his derby performance.

Jordan Henderson

Though unnoticed in the derby game, Henderson is probably the first name on Rodgers’ team-sheet. Adding vision and passing range to his lung-busting athleticism, Henderson popped a few shots at goal from outside the box showing that he has more facets to his game that Mario Balotelli’s hairstyles.

Adam Lallana

If there is one thing Liverpool fans adore more than goals is a player playing his heart out. If the Middlesbrough performance was sign for things to come, Lallana has definitely taken it a step further with the derby performance. His link-up play with Henderson and Sterling was particularly delightful.

Raheem Sterling

The teenager shoulders the responsibility of the Liverpool attack as long as Daniel Sturridge makes his recovery. With Mario Balotelli somehow not finding the net despite all the effort, its down to young Sterling to secure the result of all of Liverpool’s attacking play in the absence of Sturridge.

Suso

While Lazar Markovic visibly requires time to adjust to English Football, Suso is one who has grown up playing here. Its high time Rodgers provides the youngster with first start of the season and with Borini and Markovic still off pace, its time Rodgers’ gives Suso a go in the first team.

Mario Balotelli

The Italian worked tirelessly all derby but somehow managed to miss the golden chance of his Liverpool career. Hopefully, Mario wears his scoring boots when he takes the field against Basel.

Read More

Simon Mignolet Unconcerned By Victor Valdes Rumours

September 30, 2014 · by News Desk · News

Playing it cool

Liverpool ‘keeper Simon Mignolet, along with club captain Steven Gerrard, has been the subject of the vast majority of the criticism for the Reds slow start to the Premier League season. While not all of it is completely unwarranted, the Belgian shot stopper isn’t concerning himself with any of it.

“Well, the only pressure is what you put yourself under. What is pressure? Pressure is what is happening in Iraq at the moment when there is a war. That is pressure,” explained the 26-year old. “We are all football players and we are here to do our best. You want to work hard in training and we will see what happens at a weekend. I can only do my best, work hard, be positive and confident and I believe in myself. That is the only thing I can do.”

Liverpool have been heavily linked with a move for ex-Barcelona ‘keeper Victor Valdes as Reds boss Brendan Rodgers looks to stop the rot at the back. While it’s assumed that the veteran shot-stopper will be brought in to provide both cover and competition for the Belgian, there are whispers that he could very well take over the number one spot — something else that Mignolet isn’t about to concern himself with.

“If I have to look into all the people and players who are linked with Liverpool, then there will be another team on the pitch. Every week there would be a different 11 playing” he said when asked about theValdes rumours. “So it is just the fact that you play for a big club and you have to accept that is the way it is but I don’t read anything into that. I am here to play my game and to do my best every week, I can only work hard in training, be positive and make sure I play well at the weekend.”

Read More

PM 'prepared to take action and explain afterwards' on Syria

Two RAF jets have flown a third mission over Iraq today but did not carry out air strikes against Islamic State targets.

The aircraft gathered valuable intelligence before returning to the RAF base in Cyprus where the jets are being deployed.

Earlier David Cameron said he was "prepared to take action and explain afterwards" when it comes to preventing a humanitarian crisis in Syria.

He told The Andrew Marr Show: "If something happened in Syria, anywhere in the world, that there was need for urgent action to prevent a humanitarian crisis or to protect a unique British interest I would be prepared to take action and explain afterwards."

Read More

US Airstrikes Hitting Syrian Civilians Hard

First Publish: 9/29/2014, 12:00 PM

US F15-E jets in northern Iraq (file)

Reuters

After slamming Israel for bombing Hamas, US strikes make Syrian fuel prices skyrocket; group says strike on civilians may be 'war crime.'

Israel was browbeaten internationally over its recent counter-terror operation against Hamas targets embedded in the Gaza population. Now, the world seems to be largely unperturbed by a similar American campaign against terrorists in Syria and Iraq, despite the heavy cost to civilians.
America has been conducting airstrikes against Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and since last week in Syria as well, aided by a coalition of world states. On Sunday night, those strikes included the bombing of Kuniko gas plant which was seized by ISIS outside Deir al-Zor city in northernSyria, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The plant was targeted so as to harm ISIS financially, but it feeds a power station in Homs providing numerous provinces with electricity, reports Reuters.
According to the rights group's Rami Abdelrahman, the US airstrikes destroying make-shift refineries has nearly tripled the price of diesel in Syria's northern Aleppo province.
"The price went up from 9,000 Syrian pounds ($56) to 21,000 ($131) in Aleppo. Hitting these refineries has affected ordinary people, now they have to pay higher prices," Abdelrahman said.
Paying more, dying more
In addition to harming civilians by raising the price of gas, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday accused America of killing seven civilians in Syria's northern Idlib province last Tuesday.
According to HRW, the strike "should be investigated for possible violations of the laws of war."
The human rights group spoke to three local residents, who said at least two men, two women and five children were killed in the Kafr Deryan village in Idlib. They noted that a series of missiles hit Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front targets outside the town before other missiles hit two homes in the town itself, according to two of the residents.
The group notes that video footage from the homes shows that the strikes consisted of Tomahawk cruise missiles, indicating a US airstrike.
While one resident said the two men killed in the strike were members of Al Nusra Front, the other two said all the victims were civilians.
It is worth noting that when it came to Israel's defensive operation on the Hamas terrorist organization, the US was quick to criticize Israel for strikes on Hamas targets that led to civilian deaths.
The criticism of such strikes even reached the point where US President Barack Obama canceled a routine shipment of Hellfire missiles during the operation, and ordered closer scrutiny of future transfers.

Read More

Obama says US underestimated rise of ISIL

The ISIL has killed thousands of people and beheaded at least three Westerners [Al Jazeera]

US intelligence agencies have underestimated the activity of armed groups inside Syria, which has become "ground zero" for them worldwide, US President Barack Obama has said in an interview aired by American CBS television. Conversely, the US overestimated the ability of the Iraqi army to fight the groups, Obama said in the interview taped on Friday and aired on Sunday, days after the US president globally made his case for action in a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York. Citing earlier comments by James Clapper, director of national intelligence, Obama acknowledged that US intelligence underestimated what had been taking place in Syria. Washington last week expanded the US-led air strikes on the ISIL fighters to Syria, in addition to Iraq [Reuters] Fighters went underground when US Marines quashed al-Qaeda in Iraq with help from Iraq's tribes, he said. "But over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos," Obama said. "And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world." US and its allies, including Gulf and Western countries, has been conducting air strikes on the self-declared jihadist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, which controls large parts of land and oil fields in Iraq and Syria. The strikes aim at supporting the Kurdish and central Iraqi forces fighting against the ISIL on the ground. Obama last week expanded US-led air strikes on the ISIL fighters, which began in Iraq in August, to Syria and he has been seeking to build a wider coalition effort to weaken the group. The ISIL has killed thousands of people and beheaded at least three Westerners. Clapper told a Washington Post columnist earlier in the month that US intelligence had underestimated the ISIL and overestimated Iraq's army. "I did not see the collapse of the Iraqi security force in the north coming," Clapper was quoted as saying. "I did not see that. It boils down to predicting the will to fight, which is an imponderable." 'Political solution necessary' In the interview, Obama outlined the military goal against the ISIL: "We just have to push them back, and shrink their space, and go after their command and control, and their capacity, and their weapons, and their fuelling, and cut off their financing, and work to eliminate the flow of foreign fighters." However, Obama said a political solution was necessary in both Iraq and Syria for peace in the long term. "I think there is going to be a generational challenge. I do not think that this is something that is going to happen overnight," Obama said, citing an environment in which young men "are more concerned whether they are Shia or Sunni, rather than whether they are getting a good education" or a good job. Saying a solution involved "how these countries teach their youth," Obama continued: "What our military operations can do is to just check and roll back these [fighter] networks as they appear and make sure that the time and space is provided for a new way of doing things to begin to take root." Obama added that he recognised the contradiction in opposing the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while battling ISIL fighters who have been fighting Assad's government. "For Syria to remain unified, it is not possible that Assad presides over that entire process," Obama said. "On the other hand, in terms of immediate threats to the United States, ISIL, Khorasan Group, those folks could kill Americans."

Read More