Thursday 1 October 2009

Adebayor & Injury News


Firstly, Adebayor will be available for City's game vs Villa on Monday night:-
Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor has been fined £25,000 for his controversial celebration against his former club Arsenal but only received a suspended two-match ban - partly due to fans provoking him.

Adebayor has already served a three-match suspension for violent conduct in a separate incident during the victory at Eastlands last month, although there was the possibility of further action after he sprinted the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of visiting fans following his headed goal.

It is understood the Togo striker was at Wembley to admit a charge of improper conduct to a Football Association regulatory commission hearing.

His admission was taken into account as was, crucially, the conduct of Arsenal fans.

"In reaching its decision the Commission took into account his admission of the charge, public apology and the extremely provocative nature of the abuse he received," read an FA statement.

"However, the commission also stated that players have a responsibility to conduct themselves in a proper manner and that such celebrations are unacceptable and have the potential to cause a serious public order incident."
I'm sure a £25,000 fine (roughly a quarter of his weekly wage) will make a huge difference to him.

Now on to injury news for today...
You may already know the headline news - Michael Owen will be about for two/three weeks after twanging his hamstring during Manchester United's win over Wolfsburg. But in case you missed them, here are the quotes from Sir Alex Ferguson...

"Michael felt a slight groin injury after training on Sunday. He thought he was fine to play but on a wet surface, when he tried to turn quickly, it came back again. It is not a serious one and I am not worried because players do get them, but he will be out for two to three weeks."

The newspapers have pitched this as an 'Owen World Cup blow' but let's face it, he would never have been involved anyway. One man who could miss out though is Jermain Defoe, who is struggling to recover from his hand injury, and is already a massive doubt for Tottenham's clash with Bolton on Saturday.

"He is struggling. Jermain dislocated two fingers against Burnley last Saturday and they couldn't get them back in," said Harry Redknapp. "But he has also fractured his hand. He spent all Saturday night in hospital and is struggling.

"Hopefully, he'll be OK for England but we'll have to wait and see."

Definitely missing from that game at the Reebok Stadium will be Bolton striker Johan Elmander, who picked up a hamstring injury in a reserve game on Monday.

"It's a hamstring injury which could have been a lot worse - they call it a grade one - and it's expected he will be out for seven to 10 days, that's at best," confirmed Bolton boss Gary Megson.

"We'll have to see, but he won't available for our game with Spurs at the weekend, and I don't think he'll be available for Sweden's games either."

There's good news for Burnley though, as captain Steve Caldwell came through an hour's football in the reserves against Hull and could make his first Premier League appearance of the season against Birmingham on Saturday, though Fernando Guerrero (hamstring) and Jay Rodriguez (ankle) both limped out of that game.

Sunderland boss Steve Bruce has admitted that he made an error in bringing Lee Cattermole back too quickly at the weekend as the Black Cats beat Wolves. Cattermole played only 45 minutes but will be back in the starting line-up against Manchester United on Saturday.

"I don't care who you are or what level you are at; if you miss two-and-a-half weeks because of injury and then try to play again in the Premier League after one day's training, it's going to be tough," said Bruce, who promised Cattermole would be "firing on all cylinders" at Old Trafford.

But Sunderland could be without John Mensah, who picked up a hamstring injury in training ahead of that United game.

For Stoke, Ricardo Fuller is still struggling with a groin injury which forced him to miss Saturday's defeat to Manchester United.

Tony Pulis said: "Ric did some jogging with the physio on Tuesday but he missed training on Wednesday with flu symptoms and we will have to see how he goes. It will be a late decision."

Hull will again give a fitness test to defender Anthony Gardner, who has missed the last four Premier League games with a knee injury.

There's some rare good news for Birmingham, with Franck Queudrue returning to full training today after his hamstring injury. He could be joined for the trip to Burnley by Stuart Parnaby (thigh).

Wolves midfielder Dave Jones will be out of action for two months after undergoing knee surgery.

The 24-year-old suffered the setback against his former club Manchester United in the Carling Cup at Old Trafford.

Jones tried to train ahead of last weekend's clash with Sunderland but was not fit enough to play at the Stadium Of Light.

He underwent a scan and his worst fears have been realised, with the ex-England Under-21 player out of action until the start of December.

Wolves boss Mick McCarthy confirmed: "Jones has had a clean-up operation in his knee and will be out for two months."
Additional news - Arsenal's Eduardo will miss the weekend's game with a reoccurrence of a thigh injury, meaning the rumours surfacing in the blog comments of my previous post regarding Van Persie being rested are almost certainly untrue. Likewise, no news of any injury to Rooney so again it's probably just rubbish.

A reminder that The Blog Cup starts this Weekend for all members of the 3 Blog Leagues. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please click here. Remember, The Blog Cup is just a bit of fun so don't sacrifice long term strategy for it (unless you really want to!!).

Also, remember we have the Facebook Group which is continuing to grow in numbers & helpes me put faces to names & have some additional chat. If you head there now you may well get a pretty good idea of my current team...;)

Week 8 Preview & Week 7 Match Previews will be up tomorrow. At the moment I'm trying to get at least "1 of each" from Man U, Arsenal, Everton, Spurs & Wolves to get a nice balance rather than lumping all my hope on one team in particular. How are your teams shaping up?

Cheers,
AM

23 comments:

Raul said...

Hei, this will be my line up fo week 7
Jensen has good fixtures ahead.(Beast)
Verm-season long keep
Sonko-returns more points for his value
Alexander-good fixture, probably clean sheet
Billy-good chance to start, and great value
Fabregas- explosive for blackburn
Lennon-cheap, good fixture, good pick up high points
Jarvis- againts portsmouth, anything can happen, expect decent points
Drog-season long keep
Rooney- pretty sure about starting, can lay up 20 or more points
Crouch- great chance to start, could get few goals
B.Jensen 6.52
T.Vermaelen 6.05, I.Sonko 3.16, G.Alexander 6.04
P.Neville 4.62, F. Fabregas 16.95, A.Lennon 11.50 M.Jarvis 7.59
D.Drogba 10.66, W.Rooney 17.65, P.Crouch 9.09

Should i make changes?
Or you having new information about my players?
Rauuuul

bean said...

almost forgot about Europa today
Bily starting against BATE, Heitinga not starting, not on the bench

Assistant Manager said...

Rauuul - Like the team mate!

Bean - Heitinga is cup tied for Europe

Mike B said...

Hey does anyone have a link for the Eduardo thigh injury?

Also, any news on Benitez?

I've been scouring the net and can find zippo about either, they were both in my team and if they're out i have some serious re-thinking to do, basically my whole defence and front line!

Not cool.

bean said...

@AM-forgot about that, thanks.

thoughts on Bily's chance of starting at the weekend after playing 90 today?

maybe cahill and fellaini are back to their old form?

Anonymous said...

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/injury-news-walcott-and-bendtner-set-fot

Bradley said...

For Eduardo see above. For Benitez:

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11694_5598370,00.html

Apparently his father's generally okay. However, Benitez has a World Cup qualifier coming up, so logistically it makes no sense to rush back from Ecuador to play Burnley and then immediately return to Ecuador.

Anonymous said...

Team for this week so far :-

Given
Heit Verm O'Shea
O'Hara Jarvis N'zog Moko
Drogba Torres Adey

What do you think?

Dave

Bradley said...

Here more info from BCFC itself:

http://www.bcfc.com/page/News/NewsDetail/0,,10412~1814186,00.html

"Generally okay" was an overstatement. More like no longer in critical condition.

Mike B said...

Cheers Anon and Bradley..... back to the drawing board it is!

So much for my plan of sticking to my guns and not making changes this week haha.

Anonymous said...

Okay, after a great last week, I've made a lot of changes. I would appriciate any comment and advice, because I'm not really sure. I think it's a good team, but I'm not playing safe at all...

Given
Vermaelen/Heitinga/Bassong
N'Zogbia/O'Hara/Fabregas/Cahill
Drogba/Berbatov/Saha

I don't like Bassong, but he was the best I could get in his price. N'Zogbia is a bet, but I have a feeling about Wigan, especially due to my unpopular opinion that Pompey are much much better than Hull, so Wigan are a better bet than Wolves. Berb didn't start on Wednesday, so that may mean he was supposed to start against Sunderland. I hope he will - he got around 10 points almost every match, and it's not like he scored many goals...

SF

Anonymous said...

SF

Agree with N'Zogbia, I am going with him as well. Lacking funds so had to go with Moko as want to add Adebayor

Dave

Douchebag United said...

I like your Saha pick he's been great the last few weeks. Not sure if you need Saha and Cahill, Lennon could be a nice pick up instead of Cahill. I think you should try to get a Wolves representative in their, I know you think Pompey is better but how motivated will that team considering they are playing without paychecks?

Mike B said...

This is the first re-working of my injury ravaged squad.

Myhill ~ Wigan don't have Nando, he aint gonna get another -16

Verm ~ No explaination needed

Baines ~ Expensive but is normally productive, good chance of a clean sheet

Hunch ~ If i lose my bottle i will go for Bassong

Fabregas ~ Seems to steadily get points, i think he's due a big week

Benayoun ~ I'm really not sure on him, but i have him pre-hattrick and he could score well with no Cech in goal

Lennon ~ Good matchup and reasonabley priced

Bily ~ Now is the time to pick him up, he'll get good minutes this weekend

Arshavin ~ I couldn't decide between Arsh and Fab, i think they're both due a goal so sod it, i'll have both.

Drogs ~ See Verm

Hunch ~ didn't have much money left, and with Benitez AND Eduardo out, i'm trying something a little unorthadox


Now my only real decision to make is to downgrade Arshavin/Fab so i can upgrade to Berbatov up front.

Any thoughts guys?

Douchebag United said...

I would suggest that you make a selection to either Arshavin or Fabs. It would balance out your team a bit this week and allow you to pick up Berbs who I like this week as an underdog...

Mike B said...

Thanks for your thoughts Douche, I really fancy a big game from Berbatov. I still cant decide between the 2 gunners though.

I might just get rid of Baines and use that money for Berbatov.

Anonymous said...

Too many option?!
Foster/Jensen/Given
Vermaelan Heitinga Sonko/Bassong/Alexander
Jarvis Fabregas/Arshavin Cahill/Lennon Kightly/Billy Ballack/Hunt
Rooney/Berbatov RvPersie Saha Doyle/Rodallega/Nugent

Rgds.
Ajani

Unknown said...

Hmmm, after looking at team schedules I'm seriously considering dropping Torres. I've got the big discount by having him at 15, but the upcoming schedule for the reds isn't all that favorable. Man United and Arsenal on the other hand have some fairly decent matches coming up. I'm torn with whether or not it will be worth it to make the switch to RVP or Rooney for the next stretch. Very hard to convince myself to lose the savings... and it is Torres after all.
Anyone else having to make a similar decision?

kiNz said...

My week 7 team:

foster
verm heitinga oshea
o'hara arshavin bily kightly
drogba saha rooney

Any suggestions?

K' said...

Hi everyone,

I have 10.45 to fill midfield or forward.Any idea?
My current team is

Myhill
verm heitinga bassong
ohara gerrard arshavin bily
torres saha

No any idea for my last player.

Assistant Manager said...

TEST

Anonymous said...

cahill or lenon ?

Unknown said...

AM - Giggs will not be playing this weekend?

Giggs, Distin or Fab,Bassong?

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