Mihir Bose's Blog, page 42

Michael Owen: Jose Mourinho masterminded win at Liverpool by accepting Chelsea were the inferior team

Brendan Rodgers took a swipe at Jose Mourinho’s ultra-defensive tactics after Chelsea’s 2-0 win at Anfield but one player who made his name at Liverpool is prepared to praise the Portuguese manager.

Rodgers likened his counterpart’s approach on Sunday to parking two buses in front of goal as Chelsea shut out a side who have blown teams away this season.

Failure threatens dream of global domination

THE Glazers have been so successful in finding sponsors for almost every Manchester United activity that the only real surprise is they failed to line up a sponsor when they finally announced David Moyes had been sacked.

It’s a massive shame Sam Robson has chosen England over Australia

Chris Rogers knows better than anyone just how good Sam Robson is and the ­Australia batsman predicts a big summer for his fellow ­Middlesex opener.

Rogers’s one regret, though, is that Robson’s expected entrance into the Test arena will be with England and not Australia.

Robson was born in Paddington, New South Wales, to an Australian father and played Under-19 cricket for Australia but has chosen to represent the country where his mother was born.

Managing change is United’s biggest failure this season

Fifteen years seems a long enough time to prepare for an event you know will happen. That is double the time countries hosting the World Cup or the Olympics get. But despite knowing about it for so long, and supposedly preparing for it, the fact that Manchester United has failed to manage the transition into the post Alex Ferguson age raises serious questions of how it went about this, arguably, the most crucial job the United management has faced since the 1960s.

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Brentford boss Mark Warburton: We talk about promotion every day

Brentford’s Mark Warburton must be the only football manager who feels the tension before a match is like waiting for the release of the US trade figures.

Fit and proper? But is this ‘test’ hiding the real issue?

Whether Massimo Cellino is allowed to remain an owner of Leeds remains an open question. The board of the Football League meet on Thursday to decide whether to let him run Leeds.

The story has all the makings of a modern soap opera. Cellino buys 75% of Leeds in February. But then he is disqualified by the League under its fit and proper test for owners because of Cellino's conviction for tax evasion in a Sardinia court. This relates to the non-payment of import duties on his yacht, Nelie. Cellino pleaded not guilty, but a Sardinian court fined him €600,000 (£500,800) and confiscated Nelie.

Charlotte Edwards: Australia’s men taught us how to bring the Ashes back home

Charlotte Edwards would have loved to have held aloft the T20 Women’s World Cup in the Long Room at Lord’s tonight.

The captain of the England women’s cricket team will be an honoured guest at the traditional dinner to mark the annual publication of Wisden.

FIFA official is worried by riots in Brazil ahead of World Cup

A senior FIFA official fears there will be trouble at this summer’s World Cup following months of serious civil unrest across Brazil.

There is anger in the south American country over the billions spent on the finals at the expense of much needed investment in health and social welfare.

Why making changes in football changes can be tricky

Michel D'Hooghe, the long standing FIFA executive member, should have every reason to feel happy. The man who chaired the Belgian football federation for many years, and led the country's joint bid with the Netherlands for the 2018 World Cup, will travel to Brazil confident that this is the best Belgium side for more than a quarter of a century. "We have," he tells me "the best generation after the generation of 86," the one whose deeds in Mexico are still talked about in his country. And he readily thanks the Premier League for giving some of his country's top players, the likes of Eden Hazard, Jan Vertoghen, Mousa Dembélé, a chance to parade their skills. Yet as our conversation develops it emerges that D'Hooghe is actually very angry and his anger is directed at another famous British institution.