Woods set to make public statement - The Irish Times - Fri, Feb 19, 2010

Is the press conference being held by Tiger Woods an exercise to try and save face? Maybe John Terry & Ashley Cole should watch to try and get a few tips.

Woods set to make public statement - The Irish Times - Fri, Feb 19, 2010: "Golf: World number one Tiger Woods, whose stunning fall from grace late last year captivated the sports world, is set to make a public apology at PGA Tour headquarters in Florida and speak about his playing future from 4pm Irish time today.

Woods has been in hiding since November after admitting he cheated on his wife after his private life unravelled following a bizarre early morning car crash outside his Florida home in November.

The 34-year-old took an indefinite break from the game in a bid to repair his marriage, and speculation has heightened in recent weeks about the timetable for his likely return to competition.

The American will addresses a select gathering of people in Ponte Vedra Beach but will not be taking any questions.

'Tiger plans to discuss his past and his future and he plans to apologise for his behaviour,' said his manager Mark Steinberg.

'While Tiger feels that what happened is fundamentally a matter between he and his wife, he also recognises that he has hurt and let down a lot of other people who were close to him."

Rafa's view on the Europa League - Liverpool FC

I thought Liverpool fans would be interested in our managers views.

Enjoy

Digby

Rafa's pre-Unirea chat - Liverpool FC: "On the strength of the Europa League...

To be fair, if you analyse the teams that are in the competition they are very strong. The problem we have is that we are playing a club people maybe don't know, but Unirea did well in the Champions League. We have Juventus, Valencia and Atletico Madrid and a lot of teams who are strong in Europe in the Europa League. It will be a difficult competition, but it is the only one we can win this season, so we will try to do our best from the beginning.

On the gap between the Europa League and the Champions League...

If you look at this round, you will see a difference, but if you analyse the quarter finals or semi finals, any club who are at that stage in the Europa League will be good enough to be in the Champions League too."

The race for fourth spot.

As is stands there are a number of teams fighting for the fourth spot in the premier league, more importantly fighting for the final Champions League qualifying spot. Liverpool, Man City, Spurs & Villa are all within touching distance of that fourth spot and the plethora of money that come with getting into the Champions League.

As I Liverpool fan I must admit it is adding a bit more excitement to the season this year, although I preferred the excitement of last season when we were chasing first place but ended up finishing second. Is this race for fourth place a result of vast improvements in the ability and performances of the chasing teams? I think not. In my opinion this scramble for fourth is down to the fact that Liverpool have been playing well below their best this season, and have failed to put the final qualifying spot in the bag.

The chasing pack have been playing well this season, Man City started off the season with all guns blazing and were leading the league at some points, but then fell out of form. Similar things can be said about Spurs, they have played some great football this season but as of late they seem to be struggling to put a consistent run of form together. Villa I think are the most improved team, I like their manager, and he is a no nonsense man who knows his stuff and loves the game but I can’t see them getting that fourth place.

I honestly think that Liverpool will finish the season in fourth, if they can get their top players like Gerrard, Torres and Johnson back to match fitness and on the pitch at the same time then it should be Liverpool’s to lose.

The Blogging Learning Curve

Claim Token For Technorati: 2U875N8FV4YM.
If you have read my first post you will know that this is my first attempt at a blog site. Now that I have a few post up on my blog I am now trying to get it out there and to be honest am finding it all a bit confusing with lists of sites you should set up accounts with to get your blog known etc, setting up a RSS feed, Digg accounts and as you can tell from the code up top a Technorati account.


Any comments or advice would be gratefully accepted. So stick with me hopefully the post will get more frequent, the writing (and typing) will improve.
Don't forget please comment any tips.


Thanks
Digby

Premier League Play-offs.

I see that The Guardian newspaper ran a story on Sunday 14^th Feb stating that the Premier league is considering introducing a play-off system for the fourth Champions League qualifying spot. The play-offs would be between the teams who finished 4^th, 5^th, 6^th & 7^th in the league. The current format is the at the end of a season the top 2 teams automatically qualify for the champions league whilst 3^rd & 4^th place have to play a 2-leg qualification game against teams from other countries.  The full article can be found here in The Guardian 

I have mixed feelings about this proposal.  As a Liverpool FC fan, I don’t want my team to risk its place in Europe’s elite club competition, especially since we have finished in fourth spot a few times over the last 5-6 seasons. Plus I believe that if a team is good enough to play in the Champions League then they should be good enough to finish in the top 4 of the premier league.

If they do implement the play-off system, why do it for fourth spot only? They should also include the third spot, since the teams finishing in 3^rd has also to go into a play-off to qualify for the Champions League group stage.

The Guardian pointed out that if a vote is taken the premier league needs a 14-6 majority in favour to introduce such a measure, so is this play-off system inevitable?   Well let’s look at it like this, the four qualification spots have gone to the same 4 teams for the majority of the last 8 seasons, so the 4 teams will obviously vote against the proposal, while the other 16 teams in the premier league will vote in favour of the play-offs. So yes it would seem inevitable.