Football news, match reports and fixtures | theguardian.com

Luke Shaw gets England call-up from Roy Hodgson for Denmark friendly
England's World Cup plans are clearer, despite pleas to the contrary | David Hytner
Mesut Özil will be better for his Arsenal break, says Arsène Wenger
Six Nations 2014: Saturday evening slot puts Ireland in pole position | Dean Ryan
Tottenham 3-1 Dnipro: Europa League – as it happened
Tottenham 3-1 Dnipro (3-2 agg)
Adelaide United march on towards the top after thrashing Wellington Phoenix
277. Felix Magath, Fulham
Significance of Nicolas Anelka's punishment will come out in the telling
Napoli 3-1 Swansea City (3-1 agg)
Napoli v Swansea City: Europa League – as it happened
Nottingham Forest manager Billy Davies accepts FA misconduct charge
Manchester City's ascent outstrips even the wildest of childhood dreams | David Conn
Anelka lands five-game ban and suspended by WBA for quenelle
Football Weekly Extra: Manchester United and David Moyes hit a new low
José Mourinho reacts to Chelsea's 1-1 draw at Galatasaray – video
Carlo Ancelotti gives his reaction to Real Madrid's win over Schalke – video
The Fiver | A toxic Machiavellian egomaniac
UK and Germany: are we more natural friends than foes? | Juliette Jowit
Nile Ranger says he has never had sex with a woman against her will
Shaw and Defoe in England squad
Wenger: too early to say English clubs in decline
The footballer trapped in 'The House of the Beautiful Sleeping Athlete'
Brighton sign Manchester United youngster Jesse Lingard on loan
Thousands turn out to honour Finney

Luke Shaw gets England call-up from Roy Hodgson for Denmark friendly

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 02:40 PM PST

• Roy Hodgson fears big name omission from World Cup squad
• Southampton left-back adds to pressure on Ashley Cole

Roy Hodgson fears he will have to make a big name omission from his squad for the World Cup finals. The England manager has selected a 30-man group for the Wembley friendly against Denmark on Wednesday and the next time he writes down as many names will be in the final countdown to Brazil.

Hodgson has called up the 18-year-old Southampton left-back Luke Shaw for the first time and the move has increased the pressure on Ashley Cole, who has lost his place at Chelsea. But it is in midfield where the casualties appear most likely, with a host of established players fighting youngsters for the right to make the cut.

Hodgson will name his final 23 plus seven stand-by players on 13 May, before the pre-tournament warm-up games against Peru at Wembley and Ecuador and Honduras in Miami.

"I am very conscious of the fact that I could have to leave a big name out," Hodgson said. "It was a very different kettle of fish a couple of years ago [for Euro 2012] … I don't think there was much debate then. But I am pretty sure this time around when I name the 23 there will be a lot of debate because there will be some important players about whom some people will say: 'We understand, he's done the right thing, he's chosen the right ones.' And other people will say: 'No, he's chosen the wrong ones.'

"You are always trying to get that balance right between what am I getting from experience and losing on the other hand with someone who is younger and doesn't have the experience but could bring something else to the team. Do I go this way or do I go that way? It is nice to have the choice."

Shaw wins his widely predicted elevation after a series of powerful performances for Southampton and, although Hodgson did not want to be drawn, he is expected to play him at some point against Denmark.

"When I thought of getting the 30 names [for Denmark], I didn't actually think along those lines but it is a logical thought [that Shaw will feature]," Hodgson said. "I thought it was the right time to let him show what he can do."

Hodgson also addressed the issue of the players' wives and girlfriends, and their attendance in Miami and Brazil. He said that he would leave the decision with the players.

"It will be up to the players to decide, presumably around the games more than anything else, if they want to bring their wives," Hodgson said. "There are issues. There are no doubts about that and it's important that they understand them, in terms of security."

David Hytner

England's World Cup plans are clearer, despite pleas to the contrary | David Hytner

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 02:30 PM PST

Though Roy Hodgson said little could be read into the squad to face Denmark, England's party for Brazil is taking shape

Roy Hodgson made the point and he made it again. And again. The England manager noted the date. And he pointed out that the Premier League season does not finish until 11 May. It would be "foolish", he said, for anything to be set in stone right now.

The 30-man squad that he has named for next Wednesday's friendly against Denmark at Wembley should not be viewed as the definitive guide to the 30 that he will put forward on the eve of the World Cup finals. That squad will contain seven stand-by players; seven who, unless injuries bite, will fall at the very last. When Hodgson next names an England squad, it will be the all-or-nothing moment .

Hodgson made a final plea, as he sat in Wembley's press conference auditorium and looked down at the list of the chosen names for Denmark. "Anyone who tries to read into what I am saying could be very disappointed," Hodgson said. "Because I actually mean what I say."

And yet the hunt for clues was impossible to resist. Here was a footprint for Brazil that looked clear purely because there were so few glaring absentees. The defenders Phil Jagielka and Phil Jones were missing because of injuries and Hodgson's response was to call up Steven Caulker as cover. "Steve was not in my original list of 30," Hodgson said.

The Cardiff City centre-half can, therefore, be expected to make way, while one of the four goalkeepers named will also drop out. John Ruddy versus Fraser Forster forms part of the undercard. And so back we go to the first-choice 30.

The only omissions that caused a ripple were those of Adam Johnson and Andy Carroll of Sunderland and West Ham United respectively. Hodgson said that the former was overlooked because of the "competition we have at the moment" in wide midfield – which appeared to reinforce the sense of a defined pecking order – while, to borrow a phrase from the manager, there have been only sporadic "sightings" of Carroll since May of last year. He has made three starts for his club and has more red cards (one) than goals (nil). Carroll has much to do in the rest of the season to stake a claim ahead of Rickie Lambert for the big-man-up-front place.

Who misses out from the 30 that includes Jagielka and Jones and excludes Caulker and a goalkeeper? It was the obvious question and, if it is one that Hodgson can sleep on for now, he made it plain that it would disturb him.

"It wasn't easy before Euro 2012 and this time it is going to be even harder," he said. "This time, I will have to disappoint some people I have worked with [in qualification] and who have maybe done a good job for me and the team. We have got more than 23 players who deserve a chance to play for England at the World Cup."

Hodgson said he would not "be taking more than four centre-backs to Brazil" and, in the next breath, he name-checked Jagielka, Gary Cahill, Jones and Chris Smalling. "They are our four," Hodgson said. Would he take one less?

The bigger question concerned the full-backs, with Smalling's and even Jones' ability to cover at right-back giving Hodgson the option of preferring another midfielder or striker to a second right-back. If the now-fit Glen Johnson seems the first-choice, then Kyle Walker could be nervy.

The debate over left-back issue has been intensified by Hodgson's call-up of Southampton's Luke Shaw for the Denmark game. With Leighton Baines one of the squad's certainties, Hodgson effectively faces a choice between Ashley Cole and Shaw.

Cole is England's most capped tournament player; he has played in the past 22 ties, going back to the 2002 World Cup, and has been on the field for all but 16 minutes. Shaw stands to make his international debut against Denmark and, though Cole has lost his Chelsea place to César Azpilicueta, it is fair to say it would be a massive gamble for Hodgson to overlook him. Hodgson strikes nobody as a gambler.

It is in midfield where the real intrigue lies and, most probably, where the big-name casualty could come. Hodgson talked up Tom Cleverley although, given his form this season in a struggling Manchester United team, he appears to be vulnerable, while the manager will surely omit one of the wingers Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Raheem Sterling and Andros Townsend. Sterling is back in the squad and is a player that Hodgson knows from his time in charge at Liverpool.

Yet one or two other midfielders must also go. Adam Lallana's ability to play off the left is among his selling points but it is congested in the middle, where Michael Carrick, Ross Barkley, Jordan Henderson and, whisper it, Frank Lampard, are in competition. Then there is James Milner. Hodgson loves James Milner.

"There are a lot of midfield players that are quality midfield players and all will be under some sort of pressure," Hodgson said. "They are under the pressure of competition and they have got to accept that. They will have to convince me."

Hodgson's options up front look clearer, with Wayne Rooney, Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck looking assured of their places, which leaves Lambert looking to fend off Carroll, and both Jay Rodriguez and Jermain Defoe retaining hope.

It might have been troubling for Defoe to hear Hodgson's view of Major League Soccer; Defoe is poised to swap Tottenham Hotspur for Toronto next Friday. "You can't deny, of course, that playing for Toronto can't be put on a par with playing in the Premier League," Hodgson said.

The coming weeks will bring drama and Hodgson does not want injuries to make any decisions for him. The picture, though, has taken shape.

David Hytner

Mesut Özil will be better for his Arsenal break, says Arsène Wenger

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 02:30 PM PST

• Record signing distraught after missing penalty against Bayern
• 'I don't worry about Özil … he will adapt to the pressure'

Arsène Wenger believes that Mesut Özil has benefited from a short step away from the spotlight, and the Arsenal manager said that the club's record signing may be putting too much pressure on himself.

Özil was distraught after missing a crucial penalty in the Champions League last-16 first-leg defeat at home to Bayern Munich last Wednesday and was not in the squad for Saturday's home win over Sunderland in the Premier League. The official explanation was that he was suffering from a dead leg.

Wenger gave his players Sunday and Monday off, with some of them, including Özil, taking the opportunity to return to their home countries for time with their families. But Wenger said the German midfielder looked fresh in training and would come back into the team for Saturday's league game at Stoke City. As usual, it feels like a must-win for the club as they fight for their first championship since 2004. They go into the weekend in second place, one point behind the leaders, Chelsea.

"I never tell Mesut: 'You have to win us the game,'" Wenger said, when discussing the pressure on Özil, which relates, in part, to his £42.5m price tag. "He shouldn't do that. It's down to the performance of the team. But maybe he feels that a bit in a different way than I do. I just want him to enjoy it and play well.

"It is difficult for him mentally to be confronted with that pressure every three days and in every single competition. But he will adapt. He had a difficult game [against Bayern] because he missed that penalty and it was on his mind. Sometimes, when you are under this kind of pressure, it's good to refresh."

Wenger was prickly on the subject of the players' two-day break. "Many clubs have two days off," he said. "We played since the beginning of December, we don't have to justify why we have two days off. I don't see why that suddenly is a problem. It's unbelievable. We are in a society where everybody wants to control everything. It is unusual? We are entitled to do unusual things."

Wenger talked about the "toughness" and "intensity" of the English game, and he invited his audience to "speak to [Manuel] Pellegrini [the Manchester City manager], speak to Özil and they will tell you the same". But he has no doubts about Özil's capacity to rediscover the form that he showed on his arrival from Real Madrid in September. "I don't worry about Özil," Wenger said. "He has gone a little bit through a difficult time. It can happen to anybody. He looks all right. He loves to play. You give him a ball and he's happy. That's the most important thing. And he has the quality. You always have to be behind your players. The best way is to show him support."

Wenger has selection doubts over the left-backs Kieran Gibbs (hamstring) and Nacho Monreal (foot) but the club captain, Thomas Vermaelen, is fit after a calf injury lay-off. Wenger said that Vermaelen could deputise at left-back, although Gibbs is expected to be available.

David Hytner

Six Nations 2014: Saturday evening slot puts Ireland in pole position | Dean Ryan

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 02:18 PM PST

While it is difficult to see a clear Six Nations favourite, the scheduling has given Ireland the advantage

Three rounds of games gone, two to go and four teams tied at the top of the Six Nations. You wouldn't put your shirt on the outcome of this season's championship but, even though history suggests otherwise, I see the pecking order staying the same to the end – if only because the odds are stacked in Ireland's favour.

On one hand they have done enough to be sitting at the top of the pile and, with Italy to come next and the most favourable of draws on the final day, the odds are on Ireland extending their points advantage over England.

Be it so, then they will have deserved their title, but with all the games in the final round being played on the same day, surely they should all start at the same time? Instead Ireland will kick off in Paris with the huge advantage of knowing precisely what they need. OK, they may still have to win, but it is a vastly different job going about a nine‑point win than it is to tackle a 20-point one.

However, quick analysis of the runners and riders suggests Ireland are getting their just deserts and that their autumn promise, when they ran the All Blacks so close, was no fluke.

They have express power up front, great game management from Jonny Sexton (though that thumb injury is a concern) and strength in the tackle area from Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy – who have been at it for a decade, after all. The emergence of the back-row forwards Peter O'Mahony and Chris Henry (remember Ireland have been without Sean O'Brien) and Rob Kearney's return to his consistent best at full-back have been further boosts.

Top marks, though, go to Joe Schmidt, the first Ireland coach to harness the best of both Munster and Leinster. In turn this has helped Jamie Heaslip – not such a big guy, although he plays like one with added pace – back to the form that slipped away last season. If there is one grumble, you have to say Ireland have been a wing short – a Tommy Bowe – and, although he is returning from injury, might not Simon Zebo have figured?

England come with a slice of humble pie but suddenly you can see the shape of the side that may take on the world next season. After the autumn we knew about the pack and the world‑class back five, but in one short month the doubters have seen more key pieces fit into the jigsaw.

Danny Care's maturity helps Owen Farrell stand flatter, making him more of a threat, while the fly-half's defensive strength has helped Billy Twelvetrees with that aspect of his game. Add the impressive Luther Burrell, out of position at outside- rather than inside-centre, but a try scorer and a forceful defender, and England are getting close to being the kind of complete team Stuart Lancaster believes Ireland to be.

Like Schmidt, Lancaster has a gem at full-back but issues at wing. While it is easy to see a place for Marland Yarde, who offers something different, it was pleasing that the England coach looked to the future rather than the comfort of the past when he ran short of wide men. The result is the arrival of Jack Nowell, barely a year after his Premiership debut with an Exeter side whose adventure is not necessarily the stuff of which Test sides are made.

Wales, my favourites a month ago, have a season to rescue. The simplicity of Warren Gatland's style depends on his players really lifting themselves, and in Dublin they obviously could not. Last Friday night against France was better, but that depends on how big a threat you consider Philippe Saint‑André's side to be.

Shaun Edwards's defence was superb and will be for England at Twickenham next weekend when Jonathan Davies will probably be back, and I would like to see Rhys Webb stay at scrum-half. Mike Phillips's physicality has become too predictable, whereas Webb's passing game offers more to a back line of considerable threat. The Osprey's passing game could itself become predictable but at the moment I would prefer someone who passes nine times out of 10 to someone who runs three times out of four.

France? Try as I might, I cannot see Jules Plisson and Jean-Marc Doussain as Test half-backs and, while France are dotted with individual talent – Brice Dulin, Yoann Huget, Wesley Fofana, Gaël Fickou, Louis Picamoles, Yannick Nyanga – that's it. They play for themselves. Only when they tire of going alone do they hand on the baton for another individual to throw himself into the fray.

Thursday's disciplinary decision preventing Morgan Parra from playing at Murrayfield will not have helped and, after Scotland's uplifting win in Rome, I can see them inflicting another Six Nations disappointment on Saint-André.

Murrayfield isn't France's happiest hunting ground and they could be a busted flush by the time Ireland wrap up this season's championship with their teatime visit to Paris.

Dean Ryan

Tottenham 3-1 Dnipro: Europa League – as it happened

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 02:11 PM PST

Minute-by-minute report: A controversial sending-off helped Tottenham to come back from a 2-0 aggregate deficit to storm past Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk

Simon Burnton

Tottenham 3-1 Dnipro (3-2 agg)

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 02:11 PM PST

There has been a lingering suspicion this season that Tottenham would be better off out of the Europa League, despite Tim Sherwood's protestations to the contrary. This competition can be a grind before it reaches the latter stages, the sheer amount of travel and matches involved often weighing Tottenham down in the league. It was hardly a coincidence that their worst performance since Sherwood replaced André Villas-Boas, last Sunday's 1-0 defeat at Norwich City, came three days after losing the first leg of this tie.

Tottenham were outplayed in Ukraine last week, Yevhen Konoplyanka's penalty enough to secure victory for Dnipro. Yet Dnipro's lead was not insurmountable and Sherwood picked a team with attack in mind. It was a no-frills approach, pace and trickery in the wide positions and two strikers, Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado, up front. For Soldado, this was another opportunity to prove his critics wrong and the Spaniard began as if he had a point to make, conceding a foul inside the first 10 seconds.

Tottenham lacked incision, though, their moves regularly floundering on the edge of the area. Other than an early Christian Eriksen volley that was deflected just over, Tottenham rarely threatened, often reduced to pumping hopeful long balls.

The sight of his old side struggling for inspiration must have been a familiar feeling for Ramos. He lost the Tottenham job in October 2008 after a disastrous start to the season had left them bottom with two points from eight games. Yet despite the Spaniard's reputation as a failure in England, he has an impressive CV – as he was keen to remind everyone beforehand, he won the League Cup with Tottenham and twice won the Uefa Cup with Sevilla. Ramos's Dnipro side are no mugs, either. While they were often content to soak up pressure, they were slick when they broke and, in Konoplyanka, they had a player who could turn a match in their favour in an instant. The left winger was a constant thorn in Kyle Naughton's side, while Matheus's pace on the opposite flank also troubled Tottenham. Matheus wasted Dnipro's best opening when he fell dramatically in the area after feeling Michael Dawson's arm on his back, his appeals for a penalty falling on deaf ears, while Ivan Strinic also took too long to shoot after finding space.

How Tottenham could have done with their greatest ever goalscorer in Europe. However a hamstring injury prevented Jermain Defoe from playing one last game before heading off to Major League Soccer to join FC Toronto; he had to settle for an emotional appearance on the pitch at half-time.

And Tottenham were missing his poaching instincts, although perhaps it was of more concern to Sherwood that his 4-4-2 formation had allowed Dnipro to swamp them in midfield. It felt like Tottenham were playing into the hands of streetwise opponents and it was not a surprise when they fell behind two minutes into the second half. When Dnipro won a free-kick on the left, the delivery of their captain, Ruslan Rotan, was exquisite and Roman Zozulya's glancing header high to Hugo Lloris's right.

The concession of an away goal meant that Tottenham had to score three to progress and their response was commendable. First Soldado was denied an equaliser by an offside flag, before Christian Eriksen gave Tottenham a lifeline by bending a low free-kick inside Denys Boyko's right post after 55 minutes. Then Dnipro pressed the self-destruct button. Zozulya had been bickering with Jan Vertonghen all match and he eventually snapped before a Tottenham free-kick, catching the Belgian in the face to earn himself a red card.

The temperature was rising and Tottenham were rampant, even more so when Adebayor beat Boyko after 65 minutes. Tottenham still needed one more goal and it duly arrived four minutes later, Adebayor chesting down a long ball and finishing confidently. Never in doubt.

Jacob Steinberg

Adelaide United march on towards the top after thrashing Wellington Phoenix

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:58 PM PST

Fabio Ferreira and Jeronimo Neumann star as Josep Gombau's side continues its impressive run

277. Felix Magath, Fulham

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:35 PM PST

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Significance of Nicolas Anelka's punishment will come out in the telling

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 01:31 PM PST

Until the FA's regulatory commission outlines its rationale, there is little way of contextualising the Frenchman's punishment

A rather mind-boggling puzzle nestles at the core of deciding whether the Football Association's regulatory commission has been firm enough in dealing with Nicolas Anelka, ruling that a five-match ban, the minimum for a racially aggravated offence, is adequate for his quenelle gesture.

Described by some as an inverted Nazi salute, originated by the comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, who has been convicted in France of inciting racial hatred for antisemitic jokes in his stage act, this quenelle is ugly and somehow more sinister for being coded and cryptic. It clearly has no place, not outside sites of Jewish interest or identity, where people have been pictured doing it with a grin, and certainly not on a football pitch by a player with the world's cameras on him – broadcasting, Anelka knew, to France.

It is accepted that few at West Ham United's ground in the East End of London understood what Anelka was doing on 28 December when he used the quenelle to celebrate his goal for West Bromwich Albion. Yet in France they knew and there was an outcry. The more that it and M'bala M'bala, with his penchant for antisemitism and references to gas chambers, came to be understood, the more disturbing and unacceptable it appeared.

So for many people the five matches, £80,000 fine and compulsory education course required of Anelka is inadequate and does not send out a strong enough zero-tolerance message. It seems mild when compared to the eight-game ban handed down to Luis Suárez for racially abusing Patrice Evra, if not the mere four games John Terry had to sit out for calling Anton Ferdinand "a fucking black cunt".

It is difficult to pick a satisfactory way through this ruling without the full written reasons of the three-man commission, chaired by a QC, Christopher Quinlan. Frustratingly, the FA releases a brief summary first, apparently worried that in the time it takes for a commission's QC to write the judgment up, the decision itself could be leaked.

So the rationale for finding Anelka guilty but applying the minimum sentence has been explained, for now, only in its barest form. The commission did accept the FA's charge – it is, importantly, the FA itself that brings such charges, and it took expert advice on the quenelle – that the gesture was "abusive and/or indecent and/or insulting and/or improper". Furthermore, it was an "aggravated breach" because "it included a reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or religion or belief".

Anelka had protested throughout that he is not antisemitic, did not mean the gesture to be antisemitic, that he did not believe the gesture is antisemitic. He said he was "supporting" M'bala M'bala, his friend, whose shows in France have been banned due to his mocking of the Holocaust and stereotyping of Jewish people. Anelka at first latched on to the remarks of Roger Cukierman, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, who said Anelka's charge by the FA was harsh, but Cukierman later clarified that he was disappointed and did believe the quenelle "glorifies" Nazi crimes against humanity.

Anelka's defence requires looking into his own mind and intentions when celebrating a goal on an English winter afternoon with a gesture as incendiary as this is in his home country. Ultimately the commission has made it clear they believe him: "We did not find that Nicolas Anelka is an antisemite or that he intended to express or promote antisemitism by his use of the quenelle."

Quite how this squares, that he can have used a gesture that is antisemitic, and wanted to express support for M'bala M'bala whose prosecution by French authorities is due to his antisemitism, is the mind-boggling puzzle. The commission's reasoning, the evidence Anelka advanced and how he argued his case will only become clear when the full written reasons arrive – then, the world can make up its own mind about Anelka, the FA and its disciplinary processes.

Four British Jewish communal organisations, including Maccabi, the historic worldwide sports body that runs Jewish football clubs and competitions, welcomed the guilty finding and the FA's pursuit of the case. David Delew, chief executive of the Community Security Trust, which is zealous about rooting out antisemitism in any form, approved of this as evidence of a zero-tolerance approach by the FA and said it sent a strong message to Jewish people that the FA will act.

That is how the FA itself would like this nasty episode to be viewed, with a clear understanding that it acted to bring the charges, and that it was up to the independent commission, acting on new regulations following the Suárez and Terry scandals, to decide the case on its merits. West Bromwich Albion reacted by suspending Anelka and condemning him for "the offence that his actions have caused, particularly to the Jewish community".

The commission determined the quenelle to be antisemitic, which is important, and the reactions of the club and FA itself have been encouragingly firm.

As for the scale of punishment, the commission gave Anelka the benefit of the doubt. Whether the commission deserves the benefit of the doubt for its reasoning can only be assessed when it explains itself in full.

David Conn

Napoli 3-1 Swansea City (3-1 agg)

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 12:18 PM PST

Swansea City's Europa League adventure came to an end in Italy as they lost 3-1 to Napoli. Garry Monk's side, playing in their first ever knockout round in European competition, turned in an impressive display but just fell short at the Stadio San Paolo.

Lorenzo Insigne put the hosts ahead in the 16th minute before Jonathan De Guzman equalised on the half-hour mark.

Gonzalo Higuaín came to the rescue in the 78th minute to put Napoli back in front. The Swans came agonisingly close to making it 2-2 with two minutes remaining but the Napoli goalkeeper José Reina produced a fantastic one-handed save to repel Dwight Tiendalli's header. Gokhan Inler put the tie beyond any doubt when he scored his team's third seconds from time and Napoli will take on Porto next.

Monk was hoping for another strong performance from his players after their impressive display in the goalless first leg in Wales last week and Swansea almost went ahead in the 11th minute when Pablo Hernández fed Marvin Emnes on the right side of the box and his goal-bound shot beat Reina but was met with a goal-line clearance by Raúl Albiol.

Napoli then wasted a good chance when Goran Pandev set up an unmarked Higuaín in the box and his strike went over the bar.

Napoli broke the deadlock soon afterwards, when Higuaín spotted Insigne and he beat a haphazard offside trap before lobbing the ball over the Swansea goalkeeper Michel Vorm.

Swansea replied with De Guzman's stinging drive from 30 yards but it was saved by Reina. At the other end, Higuaín's right-footed shot from the edge of the area went just wide of Vorm's near post.

Midway through the first half, Ben Davies' dangerous corner was cleared by a Napoli defender as the Swans looked for the equaliser. Their efforts were rewarded when Wilfried Bony cleverly sent De Guzman through and the Dutchman surged forward before drilling an 18-yard shot past an onrushing Reina to send 900 Swans fans at the stadium into raptures.

The visitors grew in confidence and shortly afterwards Hernández forced Reina to dive to his right to clear his 20-yard attempt. Reina then had to come off his line to clear a dangerous ball with Wayne Routledge ready to pounce.

Napoli tried to attack before half-time but could not find a way through.

De Guzman was first to test Reina in the second half with a 20-yard effort which was saved by the keeper.

Monk made his first substitution shortly after the hour mark, with Nathan Dyer replacing Routledge.

Swansea almost went ahead in the 66th minute when Bony met Hernández's perfect cross but his header was saved by Reina.

Napoli continued to press forward and went ahead when Davies failed to clear the ball in the box and Higuaín struck the ball past Vorm.

Reina then flew to clear Tiendalli's header from Hernández's cross.

With Swansea forward looking for the equaliser, Napoli took advantage and substitute Marek Hamsik found Inler and he fired in Napoli's third to seal the win.

Napoli v Swansea City: Europa League – as it happened

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 11:53 AM PST

Two goals in the final 12 minutes dashed Swansea's dreams and ended their European adventure

Paul Doyle

Nottingham Forest manager Billy Davies accepts FA misconduct charge

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 10:58 AM PST

• Scot admits using abusive language during Leicester draw
• Second charge of making contact with referee is denied

Billy Davies, the Nottingham Forest manager, has accepted a Football Association charge of misconduct for using abusive language towards a referee, after an exchange at half-time during the 2-2 home draw with Leicester City last week.

However, Davies has denied the potentially more serious charge of making contact with the referee in the tunnel, and has requested a non-personal hearing.

The Scot had complained to the referee, Anthony Taylor, after the Leicester defender Wes Morgan stayed on the pitch having conceded a first-half penalty with a clumsy foul on Jamie Mackie, from which Andy Reid fired Forest into a 2-1 lead.

He said afterwards: "I had an exchange of words with the referee. I asked him why it was not a red card, he said that it was not a goalscoring opportunity. He sent me to the stand, for raising my voice."

Manchester City's ascent outstrips even the wildest of childhood dreams | David Conn

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 09:19 AM PST

The club's first League Cup final since their 1976 win over Newcastle is a reminder that Sheikh Mansour's investment has altered the landscape in ways nobody could have envisaged

When Manchester City last went to Wembley to play in the League Cup final, in 1976, I was 11, and Dennis Tueart's overhead kick to beat Newcastle United 2-1 was the most breathtaking high point of a young supporter's life. The photograph of Tueart's goal, which decorated crowds of bedrooms, preserves him in his sky blue cup final shirt with no sponsor's name on the chest, the 100,000 crowd mostly standing to watch. Tueart's back is perfectly parallel with the pitch, his eyes fixed on the ball, right boot stretched overhead to arrow it down, three Newcastle defenders frozen around him. It is probably the image I have looked at more than any in my life, so much did I gaze at it as a kid.

Sunday's League Cup final return of the club bought in 2008 by Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi – who has spent £1bn amassing Manuel Pellegrini's likely all-foreign team, Joe Hart excepted – prompts thoughts of how the club and English football have changed beyond anybody's 1970s imagining.

Even back then some old‑timers would grumble that football was not what it had been, that it had become too money-driven since the abolition of the maximum wage and clubs' retention of players' contracts. Sir Tom Finney's recent passing has reminded us that Preston North End thwarted his desire to move abroad and earn more, yet this tethering of his generation was presented as players' loyalty, which was eroding by the 70s.

Tueart and Dave Watson, another England international and defensive crag in that fine 1976 team, had been signed by City from this year's final opponents, Sunderland, for fees of £200,000 (Tueart was signed jointly with Mick Horswill) after they starred in Bob Stokoe's team that won the extraordinary 1973 FA Cup final against the power of Leeds United.

Yet alongside that pair, Joe Royle and the midfield sparkle of Asa Hartford, the other seven players in the City team named in the Wembley programme (cost: 20p) had been with the club since they were boys, from the long-serving Alan Oakes to the emerging talent of the winger Peter Barnes, who drove in the first goal.

In the writer Gary James' Manchester: the Greatest City, his encyclopaedic history of the club, there is a picture of a ticket for the 1976 final, located in Wembley's east standing enclosure. The price was £1.50. It was the modern era. Players' earnings and transfer fees had been unshackled, the game and Tueart's overhead kick were televised by ITV in colour, but at those prices even the highest class of football was recognisably the people's game.

Junior blues captivated by their team, which had been steadily rebuilt after the late 1960s and 1970 triumphs of the side featuring Colin Bell, Francis Lee and Mike Summerbee, had no inkling that 1976 would stand for so long as the last trophy won, and that within three years City would be deconstructed. Peter Swales, the chairman (football did not talk of clubs having "owners" then), brought back Malcolm Allison, coach in the golden years, believing he could finally vanquish United. Instead, he sold Barnes, Hartford and Watson – with Royle, Tueart and the 1976 captain, Mike Doyle, already gone – and signed eccentric replacements, most famously paying Wolves £1.4m for the midfielder Steve Daley.

My clearest memory of relegation in 1983 is not Luton Town's manager, David Pleat, skipping across the Maine Road pitch after their 1-0 victory, but of my friend's 21-year-old brother crying inconsolably. We had grown up with City as a top club, superior to United for most of the 70s, but we would learn there was no easy way back. The roared-in return of the former hero Lee, to supplant Swales finally in 1994, resulted only in relegation to the third tier in 1998. City only clambered out with that last-throes defeat of Gillingham in the Wembley play-off final, the year that United won their treble.

During those first years of football's transformation, spearheaded by United, into a Premier League breakaway business of eyewatering ticket prices, replica shirt selling and stock market flotation, some mistook City fans' glum humour and singing of Blue Moon as the embracing of failure. That was never true: there was always a conviction that "we're not really here" – a yearning fora return among the top clubs. Yet I do not remember it being part of anyone's dream that City needed a rich man to buy the club and pour fortunes in, that revival could not be attained by effort, determination, a youth policy.

Now Sheikh Mansour's extraordinary project, financially fuelling Manchester City into football's elite and into becoming a global billboard for Etihad Airways and Mansour's family-ruled emirate of Abu Dhabi itself, has met remarkable acceptance by City fans and the wider game. From a crowd that habitually scowled its resentment of the old chairman, Swales, who sat and took it, hangs a banner at the Etihad Stadium thanking Sheikh Mansour, who has attended only once.

How will today's 11-year-old boys, half-running up Wembley Way with their dads, remember this Capital One Cup final in 38 years' time, when they are their dads' age? Is it possible they will look back at this occasion, when the ticket prices are a mere £40-£100, the top players paid only £200,000 per week, both clubs are owned by overseas investors, as their age of glorious innocence?

David Conn's book Richer Than God: Manchester City, Modern Football and Growing Up, is published by Quercus

David Conn

Anelka lands five-game ban and suspended by WBA for quenelle

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 09:08 AM PST

• West Brom suspend striker until full verdict is published
• Frenchman not found to be antisemitic
• Player must undergo education programme
• Read the FA statement here

West Bromwich Albion have suspended Nicolas Anelka after the Frenchman was banned for five matches by the Football Association and fined £80,000 for the quenelle gesture that he performed after scoring against West Ham United in December.

The club announced their decision following confirmation from the FA that an independent regulatory commission had found Anelka guilty of making a gesture that was "abusive and/or indecent and/or insulting and/or improper, and that included a reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or religion or belief".

The punishment was the most lenient that the FA could have imposed under their new anti-discrimination rules. However, the governing body reported that the three-man panel "did not find that Nicolas Anelka is an antisemite or that he intended to express or promote antisemitism by his use of the quenelle".

It remains to be seen whether Anelka will appeal against the punishment, which includes attending a compulsory education programme. The 34-year-old said from the outset that the quenelle was a "special dedication to my comedian friend Dieudonné [M'Bala M'Bala]" and maintained that the gesture he made at Upton Park on 28 December was anti-establishment rather than antisemitic.

Dieudonné, however, is a hugely controversial figure. The man who brought the quenelle to prominence has been prosecuted by the French government for insulting the memory of holocaust victims and holding antisemitic views. Earlier this month he was banned from entering the UK. Anelka, however, convinced the FA panel that, although he performed the quenelle, there was no antisemitic agenda.

Albion have faced criticism for the way that they have handled the issue – Anelka was made available for selection before and after the charges were brought – but the club adopted a robust stance in the wake of the verdict. Anelka will be suspended until the conclusion of the FA's process and Albion's own investigation. The picture should become clearer once Albion and Anelka have received the written reasons for the decision. Once Anelka has that report, the striker has seven days to decide whether to appeal.

A statement on Albion's website said: "West Bromwich Albion treats very seriously any such allegation which includes any reference to ethnic origin and/or race and/or religion and/or belief. Upon both charges being proven, the club has suspended Nicolas Anelka pending the conclusion of the FA's disciplinary process and the club's own internal investigation.

"The club acknowledges that the FA panel 'did not find that Nicolas Anelka is an antisemite' … However, the club cannot ignore the offence that his actions have caused, particularly to the Jewish community, nor the potential damage to the club's reputation."

In an earlier statement, Anelka's legal advisers, Brown Rudnick LLP, said: "Nicolas Anelka is pleased that the FA regulatory commission has found him not to be an antisemite and that he did not intend to express or promote antisemitism. He is now waiting to receive the commission's full reasons for their decision before considering whether or not to appeal."

If it is difficult to imagine Anelka playing for Albion again this season, it is almost a foregone conclusion that the club will not take up the one-year option they hold when the forward's contract expires in the summer. Anelka's signing on a free transfer last July has proved to be something of a disaster, with the only two goals he has contributed in 12 appearances coming in the 3-3 draw at West Ham that was totally overshadowed by the quenelle storm.

While some leading figures within both the Jewish community and anti-racism groups have declined to comment on the severity of the punishment until they have read the panel's full report, others praised the FA for the way they have handled a far from straightforward case.

Simon Johnson, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: "The sanction that has been applied is the minimum that could have been raised and nobody can complain about that. After all, this is Anelka's first offence of this nature. The panel found him not be an antisemite, I don't disagree with that. He has made a gesture that was antisemitic. I think all those involved in the fight against racism, who care that sport processes are robust to deal with all forms of racism, should welcome the verdict."In a separate development in a turbulent week at The Hawthorns, Dave McDonough, Albion's director of technical performance and scouting, has parted company with the club by mutual consent. McDonough had an influential part to play in the recruitment of Pepe Mel as head coach – a decision that has come under increased scrutiny on the back of the Spaniard's failure to win in his six matches in charge. There had also been unease among the players about McDonough broadening his role and becoming more involved with the first-team.

Stuart James

Football Weekly Extra: Manchester United and David Moyes hit a new low

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 08:45 AM PST

On today's Football Weekly Extraaa, James Richardson has Barry Glendenning, Amy Lawrence and Iain Macintosh in the pod to riff on Manchester United's misery after their truly horrible performance against Olympiakos in the Champions League.

After wondering what got into Roberto Mancini after his Galatasaray side went on the offensive against Chelsea and hearing from Sid Loweabout Real Madrid's 'BBC', we discuss the weekend in the Premier League – such as it is – and even, briefly, Sam Allardyce's underpants.

Finally, we look forward to the Capital One Cup final between Manchester City and their bête noire, Sunderland. Will the Black Cats notch up another win against moneybags City, or will this be the most embarrassingly one-sided League Cup final since, er, the last one? We're banking on a Sunderland win, otherwise it's going to be a pretty awkward show on Monday when Barry, Jonathan Wilson and Kevin Kilbane are our guests.

Be sure to head back then, and if you can't wait until Monday, Jimbo's European paper review will be with you on Friday.

José Mourinho reacts to Chelsea's 1-1 draw at Galatasaray – video

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 08:43 AM PST

Chelsea manager José Mourinho gives his reaction to his team's 1-1 draw at Galatasaray

Carlo Ancelotti gives his reaction to Real Madrid's win over Schalke – video

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 08:33 AM PST

Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti gives his post-match reaction following the team's 6-1 win over Schalke in the first leg of their Uefa Champions League last 16 tie in Gelsenkirchen, hailing the combination of Karim Benzema, Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo which dovetailed to devastating effect

The Fiver | A toxic Machiavellian egomaniac

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 08:19 AM PST

Click here to have the Fiver sent to your inbox every weekday at 5pm, or if your usual copy has stopped arriving

ETO'O, JOSÉ?

The Fiver knows how the Special One feels. Not because we slyly rub ourselves up against him at press conferences like flea-bitten dogs against sofas, but in the sense that we empathise with what he is going through. Not because we too are a toxic Machiavellian egomaniac who does not give two flips whether some tea-timely football email thinks we are a toxic Machiavellian egomaniac, but rather because we've been having terrible problems lately with parcel delivery.

This is not a criticism of the postman. Some of the neighbours get sent three parcels and all are delivered on time and intact; but we order five packages to be delivered in discreet brown wrapping and maybe one makes it through the door, the others left strewn with the empty purple tins in our garden or smashed on the doorstep, tantalisingly short of the target. Perhaps that's just down to the profile of the letterbox we have. The postman makes it through the debris on the pavement but the last decision – the correct aim, the right movement – is something that is not right at the moment. Our letterbox is not one that allows proper execution of deliveries. So, as indicated one tortured analogy ago, we share the Special One's pain.

"Some other teams have three chances and score three goals, we have five and score one," droned Mourinho after Chelsea let the initiative slip against Galatasaray last night and spent the last half an hour trying to abort the game rather than kill the tie. But the Chelsea manager was quick to rubbish any notion that his team's goal-scoring problems are in any way connected to the the deficiencies of the people employed primarily to score goals. "This is not a criticism of the strikers, like sometimes people think," he jabbered, adding helplessly: "It's just the profile of the team we have. We create but we arrive in the last third of the pitch and the last decision – the correct pass, the right movement – is something that is not right at the moment. We are not a team who kill opponents."

If we wanted to establish whether that appraisal is what Mourinho really thinks, we could perhaps record one of his private conversations but that would be a low-down trick and we all know what Mourinho think of low-down tricks. That's right, he thinks only he should use them. Still, at least the manager's quip about Samuel Eto'o's iffy performances and uncertain age, as picked up by rascals from French television, is not going to make the centre-forward even less productive. "If, at 36 and 37 I can score three goals at Manchester United, it means that I still have some juice and I can even score until I am 50," scoffed Eto'o, zeroing in on his one prolific performance of the season. "But I really don't care, what is really important to me is to give my maximum to the team, to help them to win some titles." The thing is, it is precisely because Eto'o's maximum, like that of Fernando Torres, is no longer enough that Chelsea are unlikely to win any titles this season.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT

Join Paul Doyle from 6pm GMT for MBM coverage of Napoli 2-0 Swansea (agg: 2-0), and then Simon Burnton at 8pm GMT for Tottenham 2-2 Dnipro (agg: 2-3).

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"On the one hand, it's good, isn't it? He's raising money for charity and people are buying shirts and scarves, which is good for the club. On the other hand you could say it's a bit degrading. Some of the stuff we've had to put up with from other clubs – [Nasty] Leeds fans, Sheffield Wednesday fans, all mocking us for having a popstar on our team" – 15-year-old Doncaster Rovers fan Grant Dyson muses on the appearance of One Direction warbler Louis Tomlinson for the reserves against Rotherham United.

FIVER LETTERS

"Full credit to Fox Soccer Channel in the USA! USA!! USA!!! for making the most of what they have left after losing the Premier League to NBC. Amped up Stentorian-voiced announcer accompanied by martial music and dramatic shots of footballers desperately making/fending off tackles: 'from the heart of the United Kingdom … Scotland's finest square off … drama unfolds … destiny will be decided … don't miss Scottish Premier League action on Friday.' Er, that would be Hibernian and Dundee United" – Dan McSweeney.

"Re: number of pedants v number of readers (John Stainton, yesterday's Fiver letters). As a proud pedant, I can shed some light on this apparent discrepancy. When a pedant spots something worth correcting, the second thing they do is to write in, correcting it. The first thing they do is to go off and tell all their pedantic friends about it (so we can all share in the outrage). These pedants then rush off to tell their own friends, and write to the offending organ with their own corrections. Most of those people are not actually readers of the organ in question, they're just taking advantage of the chance to be pedantic. Therefore: tens of Fiver readers, but 1,057 pedants" – Matt Kersley (yes, we have friends).

"Dear Fiver, I can't help but feel disappointed you awarded Glenn Leete your letter o' the day (yesterday's letters) without clarification on which source he was using for his calculations. Ligue 1 says the Stade Louis II seats 18,521; AS Monaco say 18,523 and anyone who simply isn't pedantic enough to care properly will just go to Google, which says 18,480 (based on what, no one knows). The number that might have been worth disputing is the official population of Monaco, but that's another story. I invite the Fiver, and Glenn Leete, to come down and count the seats with me, so we can settle this once and for all. Shouldn't take long, and time well spent for any pedant. PS: I was talking about seating and if I had meant to include participants, what about the ball boys and the nice people on the turnstiles and the first-aiders and physios and, and, and …" – Phillipa Suarez (without the accent).

• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today's winner of our prizeless letter o' the day is: Phillipa Suarez.

JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES

We keep trying to point out the utter futility of advertising an online dating service "for interesting people" in the Fiver to the naive folk who run Guardian Soulmates, but they still aren't having any of it. So here you go – sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly romantics who would never dream of going out with you.

BITS AND BOBS

Luke Shaw, Raheem Sterling and, um, hmm, really, seriously, OK, Jermain Defoe have been called up to Mr Roy's England squad for the friendly against Denmark. "It would be foolish in March to give a definitive squad," roared Mr Roy. Full squad: Forster (Queen's Celtic), Foster (West Brom), Hart (Manchester City), Ruddy (Norwich City); Baines (Everton), Cahill (Chelsea), Caulker (Cardiff City), Cole (Chelsea), Johnson (Liverpool), Shaw (Southampton), Smalling (Manchester United), Walker (Tottenham); Barkley (Everton), Carrick (Manchester United), Cleverley (Manchester United), Mbe (Liverpool), Henderson (Liverpool), $exually Repressed Morris Dancing Fiver (Fiver Towers), Lallana (Southampton), Lampard (Chelsea), Milner (Manchester City), Oxlade-Chamberlain (Arsenal), Sterling (Liverpool), Townsend (Tottenham Hotspur), Wilshere (Arsenal); Defoe (Toronto FC), Lambert (Southampton), Rodriguez (Southampton), Rooney (Manchester United), Sturridge (Liverpool) and Welbeck (Manchester United).

Thousands of people have lined the streets of Preston to honour Sir Tom Finney as his funeral took place in the city. "Tom Finney was one of my boyhood heroes, and played in a day where footballers were earning a fraction of the money they earn today, and became a fantastic ambassador for Preston – the city and the club," said Fifa vice-president Jim Boyce.

Fernando Santos will step down as Greece coach after the World Cup finals. "The federation will support him until the last day in the job," cheered Hellenic Football Federation suit Giorgos Sarris.

Brighton have signed Manchester United striker Jesse Lingard on loan until the end of the season.

And Pope's Newc O'Rangers supporters groups have issued a vote of no confidence in the Ibrox board. A statement released by the Union of Fans said it was "deeply concerned, once again, about the direction our club is being taken in".

STILL WANT MORE?

Jean-Pierre Adams, the former France international who has been in a coma for more than 30 years. An exceptional read from Robin Bairner in an extract from the upcoming edition of The Blizzard.

Terrifying bouncing football grounds and premature penalty joy feature in this week's Classic YouTube.

Football films: the good, the bad and the ugly adventures on the big screen, appraised by Adam Hurrey on the Sport Network.

Proper Journalism's David Conn explains why Championship clubs are crying foul over FFP.

What if … Lord Ferg returned to replace David Moyes at Manchester United tomorrow? Daniel Harris does the musing.

And we bob into the archive and come up with this: Moyes own story – a week with the Everton boss in 2003 [note the monogrammed towel – Fiver Ed].

Oh, and if it's your thing, you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.

SIGN UP TO THE FIVER (AND O FIVERÃO)

Want your very own copy of our free tea-timely(ish) email sent direct to your inbox? Has your regular copy stopped arriving? Click here to sign up. And you can also now receive our weekly World Cup email, O Fiverão; this is today's latest edition, and you can sign up for it here.

META? (CHEERS, SIMON FREER)

Paul Doyle

UK and Germany: are we more natural friends than foes? | Juliette Jowit

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 08:05 AM PST

The UK welcomes German chancellor Angela Merkel with open arms today: is this a reminder that despite two great wars and too many football penalties, the two countries are in many ways more naturally friends than foes?

Juliette Jowit

Nile Ranger says he has never had sex with a woman against her will

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 07:27 AM PST

• Striker tells rape trial he is 'a gentleman'
• Former Newcastle player now at Swindon

The former Newcastle striker Nile Ranger, who is accused of raping a woman in a hotel, told a jury he has "never" had sex with a woman against her will.

The 22-year-old former Newcastle striker admitted he had "quite a few" one-night stands after he broke into the first team.

Now with Swindon, and nursing a hamstring injury which meant he sat down to give evidence at Newcastle crown court, Ranger denied raping the woman he had been messaging over three to four months last January, insisting they had consensual sex twice.

Toby Hedworth QC, defending, listed Ranger's previous convictions which include burglary, handling stolen goods and robbery when he was a teenager growing up in north London.

His offences continued after he signed for Newcastle and he was sentenced for drink driving in November 2011, drunk and disorderly, scuffling with two police officers on another night out, and battery when he pulled his then girlfriend's hair last year, Mr Hedworth said.

His barrister then asked: "Have you ever had sexual activity with a female against her wishes?" Ranger replied: "Never."

The woman alleged she was raped in the Carlton hotel, Jesmond, after agreeing to meet the footballer in a city centre bar.

She said she could not remember anything until she woke up naked in the hotel room the next morning. Ranger told her she should take the morning-after pill and she left, and they continued to swap messages that day.

She then visited her GP, was checked at hospital and made a rape allegation to police.

After Ranger was arrested, his solicitor gave police a hand-written statement in which he said they got drunk, went to the hotel and had sex twice in "various positions", the jury heard.

In a second police interview the player revealed he paid £30 for the room, which was half-price because he was friends with the manager.

He told detectives he helped the woman get up in the road outside the hotel after she dropped her handbag, rubbed her back and comforted her.

In the interview he said: "I'm a gentleman you know, I'm rubbing her back, making sure she's all right, holding her."

Shaw and Defoe in England squad

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 07:17 AM PST

• Southampton left-back given chance to stake claim
• Raheem Sterling rewarded for Liverpool form
• Defoe to join Toronto FC on Friday

Roy Hodgson has handed the Southampton left-back Luke Shaw a first international call-up in his 30-man squad for the friendly against Denmark at Wembley next Wednesday. Jermain Defoe is perhaps the most surprising selection, however, given the striker officially leaves Tottenham to join Toronto FC on Friday. There is no room in the squad for West Ham's Andy Carroll and although Hodgson insisted the door was not shut on the forward, his chances of making the final cut for Rio seem minimal.

Shaw was expected to be given the chance to stake a claim for the World Cup and he is joined in the squad by the Liverpool winger Raheem Sterling, whose recent form in the Premier League has helped to put the Reds in contention for the title.

There is also a recall for the Cardiff City defender Steven Caulker, who last featured for England in the game with Sweden in November 2012 when he scored a goal on his debut.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Andros Townsend make the 30 but there is no place for the in-form Sunderland winger Adam Johnson.

Hodgson has challenged Shaw to provide competition to established left-backs Ashley Cole and Leighton Baines for a place in his World Cup squad having performed well for Saints of late.

"I think everyone who has watched him play recently will not deny that he deserves a place in a large squad like this," he said. "He has played extremely well and is an exciting talent. I think it was the right moment to invite him along. He is a player in a position where we are well off but he wants to compete with the other two for a place on the plane to Brazil."

With Phil Jagielka absent, the Cardiff captain Caulker was called on after Hodgson admitted he was unable to select the injured Manchester United defender Phil Jones.

"We have asked Steve Caulker to come in as well," he said. "He wasn't in my original list of 30, Jagielka was and so was Jones until I found out it is a few weeks until he returns. It is not the first time it has happened to us."

The Liverpool winger Sterling returns to the squad alongside team-mates Glen Johnson, Steven Gerrard, Jordan Henderson and Daniel Sturridge, with Hodgson impressed with the Reds' current form.

"They [Liverpool] have been fantastic," he said. "They have played brilliantly well, their pressuring has been very, very good and they have made life difficult for the opposition.

"They have been quick out of the blocks and when they have won the ball they have been devastating. Raheem was with us for one of the qualifying games we played last year, he is a player I know from Liverpool but after bursting into the team he went away for a while but he is back now better than ever.

"They start afresh now they are with England, hopefully they will bring their confidence with them but (club and international football) are two different things."

With players such as Carroll, Ashley Young and the in-form Everton midfielder Gareth Barry missing out on his squad, Hodgson was quick to rebuff claims no players could work their way into his thinking before the World Cup.

When asked if other players had run out of chances, Hodgson said: "No. That is the message I'm keen to put over. It would be foolish in March to give a definitive 30 man-squad. Anyone I might decide I want to take if they are not in this 30, I am entitled to do that.

"Andy Carroll has hardly played but we will be keeping an eye on him. Gareth has not been with us in the two years but he is playing well at the moment and I wouldn't be averse to calling him up if I thought he had a place in the team."

Likewise, Hodgson stressed those players named in his squad to face Denmark should not rest on their laurels.

"I'm not prepared to give that guarantee," he added. "Anyone who thinks that may find themselves disillusioned. There is still plenty of football to be played. The period now between 5 March and 11 May is a very, very busy period. There are quite a few weeks where people will be playing three times.

"I think I have chosen a strong 30-man squad here, having a 30-man squad is good. I shall just wait and see and on a weekly basis maybe have to reassess."

Full squad

Goalkeepers: Fraser Forster (Celtic), Ben Foster (West Bromwich Albion), Joe Hart (Manchester City), John Ruddy (Norwich City).

Defenders: Leighton Baines (Everton), Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Steven Caulker (Cardiff City), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), Luke Shaw (Southampton), Chris Smalling (Manchester United), Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur).

Midfielders: Ross Barkley (Everton), Michael Carrick (Manchester United), Tom Cleverley (Manchester United), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Adam Lallana (Southampton), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), James Milner (Manchester City), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Arsenal), Raheem Sterling (Liverpool), Andros Townsend (Tottenham Hotspur), Jack Wilshere (Arsenal).

Forwards: Jermain Defoe (Toronto FC), Rickie Lambert (Southampton), Jay Rodriguez (Southampton), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool), Daniel Welbeck (Manchester United).

Wenger: too early to say English clubs in decline

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 07:07 AM PST

• Only Chelsea avoid defeat in Champions League first legs
• Arsenal manager says: 'Let's wait for end of second game'

Arsène Wenger believes it is too early to judge whether English sides are in decline in the Champions League despite three of the four Premier League sides losing the first leg of their last 16 ties.

Arsenal lost 2-0 at home to Bayern Munich, after being reduced to 10 men in the first half, and their French coach said no conclusions can be drawn until after the second legs.

"I think you have first to realise that all four [English] teams came out of the group stage. That means the level is there," Wenger said on Thursday. After only one game, you cannot judge a general trend."

Ten-man Manchester City lost 2-0 at home to Barcelona, Manchester United went down by the same score at Olympiakos and Chelsea drew at Galatasaray in the last 16.

England are rated second, behind Spain, in Uefa's rankings but are in danger of having no team in the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the second consecutive season. Last season only Arsenal and Manchester United, who hold the record for the most Champions League quarter-finals with Bayern and Barcelona, reached the knockout rounds.

"Man City played with 10 men, Arsenal played with 10 men, Man City played against Barcelona, Arsenal played against Bayern Munich, who are world champions," Wenger said.

"Of course you know that with 10 men it will be a difficult game. After that the other two teams are still in positions, Man United and Chelsea, where they can turn the results around.

"Let's wait until the end of the second game before talking about a trend of strength or weakness."

The footballer trapped in 'The House of the Beautiful Sleeping Athlete'

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 06:17 AM PST

In 1982 the French international Jean-Pierre Adams went to hospital and was given anaesthetic that should have knocked him out for a few hours. 32 years later, he has yet to awake

The following is an extract from Robin Bairner's article from the forthcoming Issue Twelve of the Blizzard. The Blizzard is a quarterly football journal available from www.theblizzard.co.uk on a pay-what-you-like basis in print and digital formats.

On 17 March 1982, the former France international footballer Jean-Pierre Adams, at the age of 34, was admitted to a Lyon hospital to undergo a routine knee operation. He was given anaesthetic that should have knocked him out for a few hours but, more than 30 years later, he has yet to awake.

Adams is a figure who drifts in and out of the consciousness of the French public but who is largely forgotten outside his homeland, despite being a highly-regarded figure as a pioneer for French-African footballers. With 22 caps to his credit, he turned out more regularly for Les Bleus than David Ginola, Ludovic Giuly and even Just Fontaine, carrying himself with a humble spirit and a ceaseless smile.

His story begins in Dakar, Senegal, where he was born on 10 March 1948, the oldest child of a large family. Although football was in young Jean-Pierre's blood – his uncle Alexandre Diadhiou played for the celebrated Jeanne d'Arc club – education was made the priority in his life by his devoutly Catholic family and he was not allowed to play the sport he loved unless his grades in school were of a sufficient standard.

With this in mind, Adams was sent alone to continue his schooling in France, where he was ultimately fostered by the Jourdain family in Loiret, a department a little south of Paris.

Football proved to be a vital release for the adolescent Adams. It also provided him with an environment in which to socialise in what was still a white-dominated society as he swiftly gained respect for his physical prowess and his endearing personality. He would very quickly become popular at Collège Saint-Louis, where he was affectionately known as the "White Wolf".

Away from the pitch, Adams completed his initial schooling but elected to drop out of a course studying shorthand as it did not interest him. Instead, he worked in a factory as his game progressed to Montagris.

However, there was a hint of problems to come as he suffered a serious knee injury that could have ended his dreams of becoming a professional footballer.

Even after moving to l'Entente Bagneaux-Fontainebleau-Nemours (EBFN) misfortune continued to follow him. Adams was involved in a serious car crash, and though he escaped with only cuts, his close friend Guy Beaudot was killed.

To have been touched by such troubles at the age of 19, it was little surprise that Adams' appetite for the game was briefly diminished. Military service, however, proved to be a turning point. Adams had always been a physically imposing specimen but his time in the army meant his talents started to become recognised in a broader sphere. He was selected to play for the military squad, from which he would be recommended to Nîmes.

Adams's desire to become a professional had been further fired by his marriage to Bernadette. Even this had been no straightforward pathway, though, as his blonde bride's mother had initially refused to give her daughter's hand to the young African.

At this point, Adams took a path similar to that of Lilian Thuram, who rose through the amateur ranks to become one of the game's most celebrated players. Thuram also turned out for the latter-day version of EBFN, yet it was during the era of Adams that the club became prominent in the nation's amateur game.

In three successive years, with Adams their driving force, they would lose the Championnat de France Amateurs final, before earning the right to play in an expanded Division 2 in 1970. Although EBFN were coming up short as a team on the big occasion, Adams's career was taking off. The strides he made during his military service persuaded the Nîmes trainer Kader Firoud to offer Adams a trial match in Rouen. Bernadette drove Jean-Pierre north for the friendly in which her 22-year-old husband impressed sufficiently to earn his first professional contract.

Firoud would be one of the key influences on Adams' career. He was a terrific motivator, although his training methods were unorthodox. However unconventional the coach, his methods were highly effective. Only the Auxerre legend Guy Roux has overseen more top division matches than Firoud's 782, and in 1971 he was named France Football's Coach of the Year. Crucially for Adams, he was particularly effective at bringing through unknown quantities from the youth ranks.

After making his debut in a new No4 role against Reims in September 1970, Adams would become a permanent fixture in the team.

It was no mean achievement to become established so readily. Nîmes's side at the time was one of the best in the club's history and Adams was a fulcrum as Les Crocodiles qualified for Europe for the first time. He was decisive in the club's first Uefa Cup win, though Nîmes lost the tie on away goals to Vitória Setúbal of Portugal.

Such a narrow defeat was the prelude to a frustrating second season in which the club finished as runners-up to Olympique Marseille. Nîmes paid for a poor spring run that saw them win one of seven league matches and rendered futile their eight wins from nine at the campaign's conclusion.

On a collective level, Adams's third and final season at the club was disappointing as Les Crocos finished only seventh, yet the midfielder remained "in international form". "In the rugged defence of Nîmes, there is a pillar, a kind of force of nature, a colossus of uncommon athletic power: Jean-Pierre Adams," said the former Argentina captain Ángel Marcos, who played for Nantes. "I always dreaded the two annual confrontations [with Adams]."

When Adams moved to Nice in the summer of 1973, Marcos didn't have life any easier. By then a France international, Adams was at the peak of his powers. Nice at the time were ready to spend. An ambitious bid to sign Jairzinho failed narrowly as they attempted to re-establish themselves as a major force after dropping out of the elite in 1969.

Despite their spending, their return was marked with a disappointing 14th-place finish but, by the time Adams arrived, Nice were rueing a failure to win the title the previous season, having thrown away a five-point lead to allow Nantes to overhaul them.

Life for Adams on the Côte d'Azur started with some promise as two goals from Marc Molitor and another from Dick van Dijk helped Nice secure a 3-2 win over Barcelona in the Uefa Cup. By the time their European run was emphatically ended with a 4-1 aggregate defeat to Köln – a tie played without Adams, who had been suspended after a red card against Fenerbahce in the previous round – the head coach Jean Snella found his position becoming increasingly uneasy. League results were not good and after a fifth-place finish he was dismissed.

His replacement was Vlatko Markovic, an ill-fated appointment. Markovic was never popular among the Nice fans. "If spectators want a spectacle, they should go to Marineland," he said following criticism of his dour playing style.

Despite the coaching sideshow, Adams remained a consistently strong performer and was named in France Football's team of the season. "Adams remains without a rival in his role, where his extraordinary athletic qualities can match the best," the magazine gushed.

In the subsequent campaign, Nice finished second behind Saint-Etienne, a series of injuries to their best players probably robbing them of the title. Adams was one of the men who suffered most and those issues would mark the end of his personal peak after dropping out of the national team.

Adams' introduction to Les Bleus had come five years earlier during the Taça Independência, a competition played in Brazil to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the nation's independence from Portugal. Fittingly, his debut came against an Africa select team, as he arrived off the bench to replace Marius Trésor, the man with whom he would form the fabled Garde Noire in years to come.

Five days later he was handed his first start against Colombia. It began inauspiciously as Adams conceded a penalty from which the South Americans took the lead but he showed his resilience thereafter.

The coach Georges Boulogne was sufficiently impressed to pair Adams with Trésor in defence for a decisive encounter with Argentina that would decide which country progressed to the second round. A scoreless draw meant disappointment for France, who were eliminated on goal difference. They were compensated with the birth of La Garde Noire.

Like all good double acts, Trésor and Adams complemented each other. The former was regarded as the technical defender while Adams was noted for his athleticism.

While Trésor was born in Guadeloupe, Adams's sub-Saharan roots were something of a novelty in the France team of the time. Of course, France had seen other such "foreigners" turn out for its national team previously; the great ball juggler Larbi Ben Barek hailed from Morocco but won 17 caps, while Xercès Louis (12 caps in the mid-50s) and Daniel Charles-Alfred (four caps in the mid-60s) were both born in Martinique. And of course there were Just Fontaine, Rachid Mekhloufi and Mustapha Zitouni, who came from North Africa.

Adams was laying a pathway from west Africa to France for the likes of Marcel Desailly and Patrick Vieira to follow.

France may have been welcomed back from Brazil warmly but it was not until they met the USSR in a World Cup qualifying match that their new central defensive pairing really came of age. The Parisian venue had been something of a bête noire for Adams in the past. He had lost two previous CFA finals at the ground, leading the press to dub it his Stade du Désespoir – Stadium of Despair.

A free-kick from Georges Bereta proved decisive for France but it was the performance from the centre-backs that was truly match winning. Franz Beckenbauer held the duo in particularly high regard, remarking to Onze: "Adams and Trésor have formed one of the best centre-back pairings in all of Europe."

Once again, however, injuries had a telling impact on Adams. His persistent troubles saw his partnership with Trésor broken up in 1975 and Adams never again turned out in France's blue.

Adams soon moved back north to the familiar surrounds of the Paris region. The ambitious PSG president Daniel Hechter had been seduced by him amid the club's first period of big spending. Hechter was a very astute businessman and played a key role in the early development of the club, lifting them from the amateur ranks to overtake Paris FC as the capital's primary power.

As the 29-year-old's experience at Nice had shown, big spending did not necessarily equate to big rewards and Adams' time in Paris was subdued, with two mid-table finishes before he was released from his contract, ending his time at the top level.

A brief and unsuccessful stay at Mulhouse followed before Adams took the decision to step into coaching.

Adams had elected to take the first stage of his coaching degree in Dijon, which meant going on a week-long course in the Bourguignon town during the spring. On the third day, however, he suffered a knee problem and the following morning quit the course for a hospital in Lyon. An initial scan showed damage to a tendon at the back of the knee but a chance meeting with a surgeon en route to the exit proved critical. After a discussion, it was decided that the best course of action would be to operate. Adams agreed to an operation a matter of days later on 17 March.

"It's all fine, I'm in great shape," were his parting words to Bernadette as he left on the morning of the operation.

His wife was worried and only more so when it took three calls to the hospital before she was passed on to a doctor. "Come here now," she was told gravely.

Adams had slipped into a coma. Bernadette remained by his bedside for five days and five nights hoping for a change in his condition while the couple's two young boys, Laurent and Frédéric, were at home with their grandparents.

There had been a problem with Adams' supply of anaesthetic, which was exacerbated by the fact the anaesthetist was overseeing eight operations at once, including one particularly delicate procedure involving a child that got much of his attention. To complicate matters further, Adams was not on the correct type of bed, the drug used was known to be problematic and the operation was overseen by a trainee.

Adams has never woken.

It would be November before he was moved north to Chalon, where Bernadette was by his side on a daily basis. That did not prevent Adams from being neglected by the staff at his new institution. After finding an infected bed sore, Bernadette exploded with rage and, after her husband had undergone another operation as the infection had reached his bones, she sat with him continuously, still holding out hope he one day might wake.

When the hospital said they could no longer look after Adams, he was moved home. For Bernadette this was a great undertaking. She would sleep in the same room as her husband and get up in the middle of the night to turn him.

Bernadette had a house custom-built, which she named Mas du bel athléte dormant — the House of the Beautiful Sleeping Athlete. It had been a struggle to get a loan in place, however, as she had fallen into difficult financial circumstances.

Various bodies came forward to help, with Nîmes and PSG both offering 15,000 francs, while the French football federation gave her F6,000 per week after an initial contribution of F25,000 in December 1982.

In addition, Adams's former clubs played charity matches. The Variétés Club de France, a charitable organisation still running today and backed by Platini, Zinedine Zidane and Jean-Pierre Papin, played a fixture in the comatose player's honour against a group of his footballing friends.

The media, meanwhile, kept his memory alive with glowing testimonies. "[Adams] was the prototype of a modern-day midfielder," wrote the journalist Victor Sinet. "He was always available, omnipresent and just as effective going forward as he was defending."

Meanwhile, the courts deliberated upon the case in a sluggish manner.

Pierre Huth, Adams's former doctor at PSG, led the case, which went on for seven years before the Seventh Chamber of Correctional Tribunal in Lyon found the doctors guilty of involuntary injury. It was only at that point that the family's dues could be calculated, yet four years later a definitive decision had still to be made.

Life, such as it is, continues for Bernadette and Jean-Pierre. Hospitals cannot commit staff to looking after Adams for long periods of time, which prevents his wife from taking holidays. Each day Jean-Pierre is washed and dressed by Bernadette, who maintains that her husband still has some cognitive function.

"Jean-Pierre feels, smells, hears, jumps when a dog barks. But he cannot see," his wife said in 2007.

Even after all these years she remains relentless in her support and love for her husband. "I have the feeling that time stopped on 17 March 1982," Bernadette explained in a discussion with Midi Libre in 2012. "There are no changes, either good or bad. While he does not need respiratory assistance, he remains in a vegetative state.

"Last year, we met a neurologist specialising in brain injury from Carémeau [the hospital in Nîmes] through an acquaintance. He ran his tests and examinations at the hospital, which confirmed very significant damage. There was a lot of damage in the brain. But he does not age, but for a few white hairs."

Despite confirming that her daily routine is "killing her", euthanasia is not an option she would consider. "It's unthinkable!" she said. "He cannot speak. And it's not for me to decide for him."

Jean-Pierre, whose son Laurent briefly followed in his footsteps by signing for Nîmes in 1996, is now a grandfather and has been introduced to all of his grandchildren. The rest of the world has moved on, but Adams lives on as a pioneer, whose unlikely journey to prosperity has been replicated by so many since he was sent from Senegal to France as a young boy.

The Blizzard is a 190-page quarterly publication that allows the best football writers in the world the opportunity to write about the football stories that matter to them, with no limits and no editorial bias. All back issues are available on a pay-what-you-like basis in both print and digital formats from www.theblizzard.co.uk, with digital issues available from just 1p.

Brighton sign Manchester United youngster Jesse Lingard on loan

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 05:51 AM PST

• Striker could take part in any Championship play-offs
• Manager Oscar García hails 'excellent pedigree'

Brighton have signed the Manchester United youngster Jesse Lingard on loan until the end of the season.

The 21-year-old striker, who scored four goals on his debut while on loan at Birmingham earlier this term, will be available for Saturday's trip to Millwall.

His loan spell will include the Championship play-offs should the Seagulls – currently four points off sixth place with a game in hand – be involved.

The Brighton manager Oscar García told the club's website: "We are delighted we have finally secured Jesse until the end of the season.

"He is one of the most exciting young English strikers and has already created a lot of interest following his successful loan spell at Birmingham City earlier this season.

"We worked hard to secure a talent who has already shown he can play at Championship level, and I am very pleased to have added Jesse to our striking options for the rest of the season.

"He has an excellent pedigree, having come through the academy at Old Trafford, and there is no doubt that he has a lot of talent and ability; I am really looking forward to working with him.

"There were many clubs interested in signing him, so we are very grateful to David Moyes and all those at Manchester United, for allowing him to come to us here at Brighton and Hove Albion."

Thousands turn out to honour Finney

Posted: 27 Feb 2014 05:13 AM PST

• David Moyes and Sir Bobby Charlton attend funeral
• Sir Trevor Brooking says 'everyone admired him'

Thousands of people lined the streets to honour Sir Tom Finney as his funeral took place at Preston Minster on Thursday.

David Moyes, the Manchester United manager, and Sir Bobby Charlton, who both managed Preston, attended the service, as did Fifa's British vice-president Jim Boyce.

Finney, known as the "Preston Plumber" for his trade outside football, won 76 caps and scored 30 international goals, and played for North End all his career, making 569 first-class appearances. He died aged 91.

"Tom Finney was one of my boyhood heroes, and played in a day where footballers were earning a fraction of the money they earn today, and became a fantastic ambassador for Preston – the city and the club," Boyce said.

"It has been fantastic to see so many people turn out to show their affection for one of the game's true greats."

The cortege travelled from Deepdale Stadium and was provided with a mounted police escort from the Lancashire Constabulary. They were joined by the Preston and District Veterans' Association who marked Finney's service as a tank driver in the Royal Armoured Corps during the second world war.

The funeral service was shown live on a big screen inside Preston's ground to a crowd of several thousand people. Preston City Council had planned for tens of thousands to line the streets, with a number of schools giving children time off to attend the event.

Sir Trevor Brooking, the former England international who represented the Football Association at the funeral, said: "He was one of the most genuine invidividuals you would ever be likely to meet. Everyone admired and respected him.

"To come to this event today, over 50 years since he played, and see all these people both here in the Minster and on the streets, I can't think of many who would get the same reaction."

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Friday, 28 February 2014

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Friday, 28 February 2014

Football news, match reports and fixtures | theguardian.com

07:20

Football news, match reports and fixtures | theguardian.com

Competition: win an official club shirt of your choice

ETO'O, JOSÉ?

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT

QUOTE OF THE DAY

FIVER LETTERS

JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES

BITS AND BOBS

STILL WANT MORE?

SIGN UP TO THE FIVER (AND O FIVERÃO)

META? (CHEERS, SIMON FREER)

Full squad

Written by TBMU Admin

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