Villa hit back to deny Everton crucial victory
Posted on April 27th, 2008
The fight for fifth place in the Premier League and the last remaining Uefa Cup spot is set to go to the final day of the season after a dramatic and pulsating showdown at Goodison Park between the sides fifth and sixth in the table.
Everton led twice, through Phil Neville’s deflected effort and Joseph Yobo’s crisp close-range finish, but Villa just refused to give up the chase, and Gabriel Agbonlahor and John Carew grabbed vital equalisers in a remarkable late spell of three goals in six minutes.
The Merseysiders still hold a three-point lead, though Villa have a better goal difference and a slightly easier-looking run-in, with Wigan Athletic at home and West Ham United away, on the last day. Everton must still face Arsenal at the Emirates with Newcastle United visiting Goodison in their final match.
Aston Villa, with 15 goals in their last three matches, were unstandably brimming with confidence, and Gareth Barry, occupying a floating role on the left, and Carew saw efforts go wide, Villa having the better of much of the first period midfield exchanges.
Everton’s best effort in the early stages came when Ayegbeni Yakubu surged down the left, holding off and then bustling past Nigel Reo-Coker before firing in a shot that Scott Carson could only palm out, with Manuel Fernandes mis-hitting his effort badly wide as he tried to fire home the rebound, a rare clear opening at that stage against Villa’s solid back-line.
Carew’s clever chip almost put Ashley Young clear in the box, before the former Watford player crashed a free-kick against the crossbar after Phil Jagielka’s rash challenge on Agbonlahor.
For Everton, Andrew Johnson’s right-sided run created yards of space, but his low cross was behind both Steven Pienaar and Yakubu as they raced into the box.
With the tackles still flying in, referee Phil Dowd was inevitably soon involved. Stiliyan Petrov was booked for a late challenge on Osman before Yakubu was cautioned for dissent and Lee Carsley saw yellow for a lunge at Petrov.
Everton emerged after the break with genuine purpose, looking for width and pace to unsettle Villa’s defence. Olof Mellberg, Martin Laursen and Zat Knight had given very little away, but after 56 minutes they were undone by Yakubu’s strength.
The Nigerian’s first touch sent him powering away from Knight on the left, and although his cross was wayward the ball fell into Neville’s path 25 yards out on the opposite flank.
It would have been easy to lash the effort over the bar, but Neville coolly converted for his second goal of the season, his shot flicking off Laursen’s chest and wrong-footing Carson.
After 65 minutes, David Moyes, the Everton manager, took off Fernandes and brought on Mikel Arteta, who had not trained for a fortnight after injury and only arrived back from Spain on Saturday.
Villa sent on attacking players Patrik Berger and Marlon Harewood for defenders Knight and Wilfred Bouma, the need for goals now critical for Villa’s European dreams. And after 80 minutes they succeeded. Barry’s corner swirled into the box and Agbonlahor was free eight yards out to side-foot the equaliser past Tim Howard.
Everton’s response was to inject the extra strength and height of Victor Anichebe for Johnson after 82 minutes. It came two minutes later when Carsley’s clipped cross to the far post was met by Yobo, who slammed the ball into the roof of the net.
Everton thought they were home and dry, but two minutes later Villa were level again, Barry’s cross being headed in by Carew, who outmuscled Joleon Lescott to get to the ball first.
Harewood and Anichebe were booked after a flare-up on the touchline in a pulsating finale.
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FA request video footage of Battle at the Bridge
Posted on April 27th, 2008
The Football Association will ask to see all details and TV footage of the post-match fight between Manchester United players and Chelsea staff.
United substitutes became embroiled in a scuffle with Stamford Bridge groundstaff and stewards in the warm-down following yesterday’s 2-1 defeat.
Andrin Cooper, an FA spokesman, revealed the governing body will be looking into the matter, saying: “This will have nothing to do with the referee’s report. He would have been in his dressing room a long way from the incident.
“But we will obviously be asking Chelsea to let us see their CCTV footage of the incident.”
Chelsea issued a statement after the game saying they would be “reviewing the relevant footage and will be considering the appropriate course of action”.
United have also asked to see the pictures so they can consider what action to take.
Patrice Evra, Paul Scholes, John O’Shea, Gerard Pique and Gary Neville were taking part in the warm-down on the pitch when they were asked to move by Chelsea groundstaff.
The row erupted when the players refused to come off the pitch and an altercation broke out between stewards, groundstaff and the United players.
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MYM falls to KingSurf
Posted on April 27th, 2008
27th April 2008, 16:05
MYM falls to KingSurf
After what seemed to be a major upset and losing to SGC 0-2 in the first round of the winner brackets, MYM was thrown into the lower brackets early to face off KingSurf. Unfortunately MYM’s safety picks were not enough and KingSurf proved they knew how to counter well!
Earlier in the day, MYM barely defeated XcN. They were losing the game for the most part and the score was always lop-sided. In the end it was the notorious Shadow Priest/Bristleback combination that saved them.
In both games MYM snatched Bristleback/SP early in picks. It seemed to work against XcN, because they didn’t counter heroes as well as Ks did. The only thing that countered bristleback in that game was the earthshaker.
Before the bristleback had more HP and more armor, when the earthshaker would fissure him it caused the bristleback to turn around so that his back was not facing them anymore. This disabled bristleback’s “bristleback” skill allowing them to hit him from the front and kill him.
KingSurf chose greater ways to approach the SP/BB combo. This was probably MYM’s biggest mistake, picking a circumstantial combination and leaving KS’s four more picks to counter it. KingSurf made some beautiful choices, picking up obsidian destroyer, necrolyte, zeus and chaos knight.
With static field, reaper and Obsidian’s orb (which goes through bristleback), there was nothing the bristleback could do. Even though he farmed almost equally well in this match, he died a lot easier. The necrolyte went scepter and always used his ultimate on bristleback.
MYM’s heroes got a lot more farmed this game; Maelk had scepter/hood on Leshrac and H4nn1 had Deso/Midas on Priestess. Unfortunately the potm and earthshaker would die to the obsidian/zeus ultimates immediately and Yamateh would come and clean up every fight.
Yamateh played an amazing obsidian with a really early guinsoo, even drawing first blood. He became unstoppable to the point where he could 4-shot the leshrac in a hex (even when the leshrac had all those items.)
This leaves MYM out of Prime Defending. And with Virtus.Pro disqualified, the two favorites are already out of the tournament. One can only wonder, who will be the next champion? Stay tuned to find out!
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Virtus.Pro disqualified
Posted on April 27th, 2008
26th April 2008, 20:00
Virtus.Pro disqualified
It is with deepest regret that we have to announce the disqualification of Virtus.Pro from this edition of Prime Defending and connected with that also the first season of the Prime Defending League.
After the second match between Check-Six and Virtus.Pro an investigation has been started with the result that Virtus.Pro used 3 unrostered players fakenicking for Virtus.Pro in the match. We have gathered evidence in form of IPs which have been clearly assigned to non-VP players at that time.
The proof shows that in the first match Vigoss was played by Isteran and sahka by ManiaQ. In the second match Vigoss was played by Aidar.
Both teams have been informed about the ongoing investigation on thursday the 24th of April at 12:30. The administration finished the investigation and made the Prime player council, currently consisting of Naz, Drayich, focusIRE, Maelk, Whisper and Lego, familiar with the case. The evidence has been approved by the council by friday the 25th of April with no votes against.
According to the current Prime Defending ruleset Virtus.Pro shall be disqualified from the current Prime Defending Tournament. Since they already had a warning from the prior playday the ban also includes the first Prime Defending League (PDL) season.
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