Watch Liverpool

Posts Tagged ‘london’

• Keane could make Villa debut against Everton
• Petr Cech commits to Chelsea despite transfer talk

Aston Villa are in talks to sign the LA Galaxy striker Robbie Keane on a two-month loan deal, which could be completed in time for their next Premier League game against Everton on 14 January.

The Villa manager Alex McLeish says the club have held productive talks with the Republic of Ireland international over the short-term deal, after which Keane will return to the US for the start of the Major Soccer League season in March.

McLeish said: “We are having a look at it with Robbie and trying to pursue it. That is the latest although nothing is done and dusted yet. If we don’t know by Monday, then it probably will not be done. That’s why I don’t want to say too much in case it doesn’t happen. We are certainly pursuing it and at the moment, both parties are keen. I would say the chances are a bit better than 50-50.”

If the deal is confirmed, Keane could face his Galaxy team-mate Landon Donovan, who has returned to Everton for a second loan spell, on his Villa debut.

Keane is currently maintaining his fitness by training with his former club Tottenham, but is keen to retain his sharpness by playing during the MLS break ahead of this summer’s Euro 2012 finals.

McLeish also restated his position that the club’s record signing, striker Darren Bent, is not for sale, amid continuing speculation linking him with Liverpool.

McLeish said: “We’ve not heard a thing from Liverpool. I’m aware of the speculation. But there has been no contact with this club and I think you’ve had three parties telling you that. But, even if there was contact, we would not entertain that [selling Bent].”

The Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech expects to sign a new extended contract despite reports that André Villas-Boas is planning to sell him in favour of the summer signing Thibaut Courtois, who is currently on loan at Atlético Madrid.

“Yes, I think [I will sign a new deal] and we will not have a problem,” Cech told the London Evening Standard. “I have been here for seven years and I have been more or less a regular starter, so I’m more than happy to stay. Chelsea are in the world’s top competition, so I have no reason to leave. I would like to see myself staying here.”

However, Cech also refused to rule out one day plying his trade elsewhere. “It is difficult to leave the best league in the world and if you take a look around, you will not see many teams of Chelsea’s category that would be looking to sign a new goalkeeper,” he said.

“If I would like to try something new, then it would have to be a club of a similar level to Chelsea. You never know, everything happens fast in the football life. You can sign a 10-year contract with a club and then end up leaving after three years. I’m 29 years old and I believe that there is still time for a possible change.”

Transfer windowAston VillaLA GalaxyChelseaLiverpoolTottenham Hotspurguardian.co.uk

Roman Abramovich may be compelled to act sooner rather than later if it appears Chelsea are heading for the Europa League

The old immutable law of the ex ensured that Glen Johnson would be the man to pop up with the late winner that helped his current club beat his old employers on Sunday. It is a law that was never likely to apply to Fernando Torres, who was granted only a fleeting appearance in the final stages but still managed to convey the impression of a man out of touch with whatever qualities persuaded Roman Abramovich to spend £50m to take him to Stamford Bridge last January.

In a dozen attempts, Chelsea have still not managed to beat a Liverpool team managed by Kenny Dalglish. A 1-0 defeat in the equivalent fixture last season, when Torres made a spectacularly hapless debut a few days after his arrival at Stamford Bridge, did no good to Carlo Ancelotti’s hopes of remaining at the club that he had led to a league and FA Cup Double the previous season. Now there is the question of how long André Villas-Boas, his expensively acquired successor, can cling on to the position.

Three of Chelsea’s last four league matches in the past month have ended in varying forms of ignominy. The representatives of a club into which the owner has poured around £750m would not have expected to lose by the only goal to the newly promoted Queens Park Rangers at humble Loftus Road. The subsequent 5-3 home defeat at Arsenal’s hands would have been simply unthinkable during the reign of José Mourinho, whose achievements his fellow Portuguese was employed to emulate.

Mourinho drew criticism towards the end of his time in London for sending out teams that played with a pragmatism inappropriate to the amount of money lavished on assembling their components, not to mention out of sync with the owner’s desire to see attractive football, but in his time there were plenty of 4-0 wins and absolutely no outright humiliations of the sort inflicted by Arsène Wenger’s players.

That was followed by a 1-0 victory at Ewood Park, at a time when beating Blackburn Rovers is no indication of a team’s quality. And then, following the international break, came this calamitous last-minute collapse, the result of the sort of indiscipline that would have had Mourinho frothing at the mouth. Abramovich paid Porto £13m in compensation for allowing Villas-Boas to leave before the end of his contract. Had he stayed, no doubt he would have maintained the extraordinary success of his first season, when his players won four trophies, including the Europa League, and went through the Portuguese league season unbeaten. But winning the Europa Cup at the age of 33 is not the same as winning the European Cup at 41, as Mourinho did.

“The owner did not pay €15m to get me out of Porto to pay another fortune to get me out of here,” Villas-Boas said on Sunday night, with more bravado than realism. If Abramovich is not distracted from football matters by his attempt to convince the high court that it would be wrong to order him to pass over a substantial part of his bank balance to his former partner Boris Berezovsky, he will think nothing of paying whatever amount of compensation is stipulated in his young manager’s contract. This is a man who shocked the art world by spending £63m at auction on works by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud three years ago, smashing records of all kinds in order to please his girlfriend.

Over Villas-Boas’s shoulder lurks the shadow of Guus Hiddink, newly unemployed as a result of Turkey’s inability to make it through last week’s Euro

• Villas-Boas insists Torres is performing well for Chelsea
• ‘He’s one of our best suppliers of assists,’ says manager

André Villas-Boas has insisted that Fernando Torres has been worth the British-record £50m fee paid to Liverpool to secure his services last January and believes he can still rediscover the goalscoring form of his early days in the Premier League.

Torres is expected to start Sunday’s game against his former club at Stamford Bridge having shown only flashes of form during his spell at the London club. Villas-Boas pointed to the 27-year-old’s recent all-round contribution as cause for optimism, and a burst of four goals in as many games in the autumn as evidence of improvement, though the Spaniard has still to justify the size of the fee required to prise him from Anfield at the turn of the year.

Yet, when asked if Torres was worth that amount, and if he would pay a similar sized fee now to sign him, Villas-Boas replied: “Of course. Of course I would. In a career or a person’s life, you have better moments and worse moments. At the moment, Fernando’s best moments in terms of goalscoring were the Liverpool days. That does not mean those days won’t arrive in this club, and that does not mean that, at the moment, he is not performing for the team, because he is.

“Isolate the last four months with the goals he’s scored [four in seven games in all competitions] and it isn’t bad. A striker is not just there to put the ball in the back of the net. He’s there to perform and create. We create enough opportunities if we’re winning or losing games and, at the moment, our best goalscorers are our two midfielders [Frank Lampard and Ramires]. But for them to finish, someone is creating. The team is creating, so I’m happy at the moment.

“Fernando helped create our goal in Genk – that was a one-two [with Ramires] – so it’s not just a question of numbers and goals scored. It’s about how you make your team perform around you. He’s one of the best suppliers of assists at the club, with four or five this season. He’s assisting people and the team and getting wins out of that. I think Fernando has picked up from last season, not only with his form but physically and also with his availability and movement for the team. He’s been back to his old sharpness, and goalscoring, and we’re pretty happy with the way he’s performed.”

Raul Meireles, another player plucked from Liverpool, is also expected to start Sunday’s game as Chelsea plunge into a seven-match run, culminating in the visit of the leaders Manchester City to south-west London in mid-December, that will go some way towards shaping their Premier League challenge, as well as their continued participation in the Carling Cup and Champions League. “Bearing in mind the calendar, it’s important the team returns to the good standard we set in the beginning,” said Villas-Boas. “It could be an ideal time to do that because we play teams like Liverpool, Newcastle and City.”

The Portuguese has denied a Football Association charge over his post-match criticisms of the referee Chris Foy after Chelsea’s defeat to Queens Park Rangers on 23 October but has opted against seeking a personal hearing with the governing body. “I have other things to do,” he added. “I’m not worried. I understand that a charge cannot be taken lightly. This is the maximum body of English football and I respect that, but it doesn’t mean I agree with it and it doesn’t mean I have to defend it to death. The charge implies that I was calling the referee biased or questioning his integrity. I was not.”

ChelseaLiverpoolPremier LeaguePremier League 2011-12Dominic Fifieldguardian.co.uk