Liverpool on course to shatter ManU empire: Benitez

London, Mar 14: Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez is convinced that he is on course to shatter the Manchester United empire.

Benitez takes his side to Old Trafford on the back of Tuesday’s Euro win over Real Madrid. He knows even his first- ever league victory at United would leave the title as no more than a faint hope.

Manchester United, the defending champions would still be four points ahead, with a game in hand.

Yet the Spaniard has seen enough this term to back up his belief that he will eventually mastermind the toppling of United, even if it is not this season, The Sun reported.

"I think we can. This year has been better than before and, with one or two more goals, we could have been about four points closer. So, of course, we can do it," Benitez said.

"This year we’ve been up there for a long time. But we have also made some mistakes. If we cut those out in the future, we’ll be even closer. Then maybe the motivation would be different for everyone," he said.

Benitez put himself in the firing-line with his infamous rant against Ferguson, claiming he had too much influence over referees and got preferential treatment from the FA.

After his outburst before the draw at Stoke in early January, Liverpool went four games without a win and crashed out of the FA Cup at Everton. Meanwhile United cruised past them at the top.

Ferguson admitted he was baffled by what the Kop boss said, joking he would have to read more Freud before he could work the statements out.

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Liverpool vs Everton - interupted by glitch

ITV has apologized to viewers after Everton's winning goal was interupted with an unexpected commercial break.

The commercial broadcaster blamed the technical problem at transmittion centre and not the production team. Chairman Michael Grade says that heads will roll...

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Kuwaiti group deny Liverpool takeover rumours

The Middle East investment arm representing Kuwaiti billionaire Nasser Al-Kharafi have moved on Friday to disassociate themselves from suggestions that they are trying to buy Liverpool.

The move has come following speculation originating from English tabloid The Sun claiming that Liverpool's American owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks are currently in discussions with Nasser Al-Kharafi regarding a potential mega-money takeover.

"We have not conducted any negotiations," insisted Jassem al-Kharafi, elder brother of the Group's chairman Nasser al-Kharafi.

"The Group has no plans to buy any sports club."

Kharafi Group vice president Loay al-Kharafi underscored the statement released to the press by insisting that the reports emanating from the British press are "not correct."

Al-Kharafi, ranked as the 46th richest man in the world, was linked with a takeover at Newcastle United last October, and his cousin held buy-out talks with Hicks earlier in the year.

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Liverpool’s Development Centre in City

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BIG VENUE: The Bharati Vidyapeeth ground will be the venue for the football development centre, to be run by Liverpool

  PUNE: In arguably the biggest development in the history of Pune football, Premiership giant Liverpool announced on Tuesday that the club would have a football development centre in the city very soon.
Although there is no fix date for the opening of the development centre, a joint venture by city’s Abhijit Kadam Memorial Foundation (AKMF), Liverpool, and British company Kickworldwide, one can expect to see a lot of developments in next month, according to Steve Bellis, director, Kickworldwide.

Liverpool commercial director Ian Ayre, who was in the city since Monday, made the announcement in presence of Vishwajit Kadam, managing trustee, AKMF, and the brain behind the centre.
“We had arrived here to discuss the possibility of a football development centre in Pune. Now one can say that it’s definitely going to happen. When, and how, we will have to see.
“We are still in the discussion process and we need to finalise a lot of key points about the centre,” Ayre said on Tuesday before leaving the city.

“We have seen the facilities at the Bharati Vidyapeeth ground. It’s just the kind of ground we wanted to start a development centre at,” Ayre added.

Talking about the Kickworldwide’s part in it, Bellis said, “We have been approached by a number of people from India in the past who made false promises. So one thing we look at is the attitude, and we are very impressed with the vision of Vishwajit Kadam. We know he is looking at a long-term project, which will help in developing good footballers in India. And that’s something we all want to see,” Bellis explained.

Kickworldwide runs the famous football reality show Soccer Prince in UK. “We tried this show in China and it was a hit. We had about 20,000 kids in China, and the number could have been far bigger, if we had advertised it in a bigger way. But we didn’t, because we didn’t want the number to go to a uncontrollable level.

“I can’t tell you right now when this reality show will begin in India, but it will happen this year for sure,” Bellis said.

“The basic idea is to create awareness about the game, and the huge number of job opportunities it opens and then to channelise that awareness towards the development centre,” Bellis explained.

Explaining about the awareness, he said, “I have seen the India U-16 players who played in UK recently. They were unbelievable. There is a lot of talent in India. What you need now is some role models. You need the Sachin Tendulkar’s of football here. And that’s what our aim is.”

The basic involvement of Liverpool will be to provide the technical expertise. “Since we are such a big club in Europe, we have our experts at all different levels. We have good coaches, pitch experts, commercial specialists.

“We are still discussing about the various levels at which we can be involved, apart from coaching,” Ayre said.

Even though not much has been finalized about the development centre, Vishwajit Kadam informed that they are looking at the players in the age group between 14 and 18. “We will have a fix number of kids who will train with us at a time. We haven’t yet figured out about the volume of it, but at least initially we are looking at kids from Pune, and other parts of Maharashtra,” he explained.

“The target is to find the talent from smaller cities. We don’t want to pick up someone who is already playing for a big club like Mahindra United,” Bellis summed up.

 

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Liverpool’’s Torres tips Man-U for title

Liverpool striker Fernando Torres believes Manchester United are the favourites to win the Premier League title.

‘Firstly United have two games in hand and if they win both they will be top of the League. That is certainly possible for a team of their quality.
We respect them totally for the class of players they have. Many of them are among the best in the world. They”re the clear favourites to win the title. We”re working hard to compete with them and finish above them, and we”re on course to achieve that,” The Telegraph quoted Torres, as saying.

‘We know the chances we have. We have to go to Old Trafford and we will play Arsenal and Chelsea at home and we shouldn”t drop more points like the other day. I think United have their chances as do Chelsea and Liverpool. We have to fight till the end and we”ll see what happens. Few teams can win the Premier League today and we can be champions this year,” he added.

‘I think the game at Old Trafford will decide the title. If everything goes as we expect we think we will go there in a similar position to now to that game. We will have to play our game to try and get a result in a ground where in the last few years has not been good for Liverpool,’ he said.

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