live sports

A of couple of pundits on England's chances in the next 6 weeks...

Roger Uttley: "We've got to win a couple of games in the Six Nations "... Roger you're such an optimist.

Lawrence Dallaligio: "they will win their three home matches and one of their two away games"... Lawrence showing some more confidence.

The England players up for the IPL auction... 60 places up for grabs with 130 odd players from around the world entered. Each of the 8 franchises has max. $2m to spend on new players... who would you spend money on out of this lot?

Kevin Pietersen ($1.35m), Andrew Flintoff ($950k), James Anderson, Ian Bell, Steve Harmison, Monty Panesar, Paul Collingwood, Matt Prior, Ravi Bopara, Rob Key, James Foster, Sajid Mahmood, Matt Prior, Owais Shah, Shaun Udal, Ryan Sidebottom, Luke Wright, James Foster, Graeme Swann, Darren Gough, Dominic Cork and Ed Joyce.

Miserable Scotsman to cheer up Europe's Ryder Cup players

So it's Monty to take over the captaincy of the Ryder Cup - I reckon he is the best choice and was perhaps the most influential Ryder Cup player of the last 10-15 years. Here's hoping he can take that form on to being a captain and that he does raise a smile from time-to-time and look like he's enjoying it.

Have Arsenal been stealing from Liverpool's jam jar? After all Liverpool's last minute luck this season they've now conceded in the last minute or so in their last 2 games. To make things worse last night Arsenal salvaged a draw with a last minute goal. Is Arsenal's season finally getting lucky?

How's this for a scoreline... 194-3

Bath, Toulouse you need to look at the minor leagues for inspiration on how to score some points. Another shock for me is that the score above isn't anywhere near the record... 350-0 is the record, set in the French 3rd division.

England warming up for the tests by thrashing school boy side.

Even Harmy managed 58 in the first innings. But Flintoff the team mascot and hero has side strain putting him in doubt for the first test next week - if he's not there then at least the West Indies have an outside chance.

Djokovic out this morning - lining up to be another Nadal vs Federer final. Yawn.

Indeed it did decide the match - Murray finally sinking in the last set... 3 hours 20 minutes.

Verdasco serving here - about 7 deuces so far. Great tennis from both. This could decide the match. Currently 3-2 to Murray but if he can break...

Verdasco is a bit of a one trick pony - everything needs to go to his forehand and he runs quite a bit to ensure it does. However he's tiring Murray out here with some pretty exceptional shots and some big aces.

Minty very tired now - 2 sets each, last set on the server 3-2 to Murray. Could go either way this - but Murray was pretty ill last week and likely he'll fade faster than the Spaniard. Live betting shows Murray still odds-on to win this but very close. Did Murray have too much haggis last night? Or will the spirit of Robbie Burns lift him to win this one?

Murray Mint looking pretty chewed up today - he looks knackered right now with a 5th set looming. So far he's 6-2 1-6 6-1 2-5 and serving to stay in the 4th set.

Liverpool 0 - Everton 0, the second draw within a week - you've got to consider that good news for the Toffees since they did very little but defend for 90 minutes. At home on February 4th will they try something different?

Robbie Keane is not even on the bench for this afternoon's FA Cup 4th round encounter against Everton.

Ouch! That must hurt for the 20 million pound signing! Wild rumours are circulating that he could be on his way back to Spurs to reunite with Jermaine Defoe

All square (and goal-less) after 90 mins and a replay coming up at the Emirates Stadium on Tues Feb 3rd. Cardiff will be reasonably happy with their afternoon's work but perhaps regretting missing those early chances that would have totally changed the complexion of the game. Arsenal were by far the stronger side in the second half but they still fail to convince in front of goal (both their own and the oppositions!). Will Arsene get out his checkbook out before the transfer deadline? Apparently, Betfair are offering similar odds to Eboue winning the Football Writers' Association Player of the Year.

Cardiff's McCormack skims the Arsenal bar with a beautifully weighted free kick. Wenger looks ruffled...

Adebayor takes Wenger's instructions to replace Eboue a little too literally and fluffs a great chance with only the keeper to beat. Dave Jones makes his first substitution; off comes Burke.

The odds of Eboue become an Arsenal legend (at least in the good sense of the word) remain on 5000-1 as Wenger finally loses patience and brings him off for Adebayor. With 20 mins to go, Dave Jones keeps faith with his starting 11.

After being constantly booed by the Ninian Park crowd, Ramsey gets a generous round of applause from both sets of fans on being subsituted in the 58th minute (what a fickle bunch those Welshmen are). Diaby, who is about 1 notch above Eboue in terms of footballing competance, comes on...

No goals at half-time in an entertaining FA Cup fourth round tie between Cardiff and Arsenal.

Cardiff started brightly and could have been a couple of goals up after 15 mins. Arsenal have gradually come back into the game but are lacking that killer touch in front of goal (and Fabregas to orchestrate things from the centre of midfield). Old boy, Aaron Ramsey, is being roundly booed by the Cardiff faithful. Looks like it is affecting his confidence too.

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Eboue's ineptitude continues to shine brightly; the guy picked up a yellow card for diving in the Cardiff penalty area and then, minutes later, failed to control a gift of a ball from a Cardiff defender in the 6-yard box. Chances of this guy becoming a crowd favourite at the Emirates? About 5000-1 at the moment!

In becoming the first to get to the quarter finals BigRog had a bit of a shock today - had to come back from 2 sets down to get through 4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2. He goes on to play a guy called Del Potro who sounds like a cross between a cockney wide boy and a tasty Spanish fruit.

Half time - United leading 2-1. Towards the end of that half United started looking very good. Spurs have only themselves to blame - much of the goodness is coming from ex-Spurs players.

Melzer melts under might of Murray's magic. A good solid win for Minty 7-5 6-0 6-3... he goes on to meet Fernando Tabasco (sic) in a fiery last-16 encounter.

Game, set and match! The 'Mint' takes the third set 6-3 to leave his opponent as crushed as the ice in a mojito

'Alka' Melzer certainly in need of some refreshment here - he's taking a big shooing right now with Minty taking the second set 6-0 in 25 minutes.

Melzer is a very gracious opponent - apparently in the US Open, when he lost in 5 sets to Murray, he told Murray it was the best game he ever played in. Today he's also applauding some of Minty's best shots. Nice bloke.

Murray spraying his first serves about like a blind machine gunner. Still he's 1 set up and 3-0 in the second.

I think that Murray is the love child of Cliff Thorburn and Martina Navratilova. He really is pretty good at tennis but his style is to grind away and make virtually no mistakes. I think he's starting to get to Melzer now who's making most of the running but also making most of the mistakes.

Murray making hard work of the first game in the second set - finally takes it on advantage.

Murray takes first set... making few errors in an average start. Melzer perhaps likely to tire a bit now - he really was active in that last set.

All even at 4-4. Melzer very much up for it. Taking the game to Minty.

Murray not exactly at 100% yet against 'Alka' Melzer. 4-3 with Melzer serving. All fairly even so far - Melzer looking very aggressive but a bit stupid in the backwards baseball cap.

Murray eating up the Granola bar right now. Currently 6-4 5-2.

Murray Mint vs Granola Bar coming up. Should be another walk over for the ever improving Scot. Let's hope he gets a few bad calls and we can see him whinge a bit.

Spurs in contention for 'Jammiest Result of the Week' award!

Looks like Harry Rednapp had a whole truckload of Robertsons finest delivered to the Spurs changing room at Turf Moor last night.

Spurs resembled a hungover Sunday League pub side as Burnley pulled themselves back from a 4-1 defeat in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final to level the scores at 4-4 after 90 minutes. Despite the driving rain, Burnley played some beautiful passing football at times that Arsene Wenger would have been proud of.

It's a real shame that the away goals rule doesn't count until after extra time for this trophy. With two minutes remaining in extra time - and the scores still level - Spurs scored, followed quickly be another to totally flatter the scoreline, and send themselves through to a thoroughly undeserved final against Man Utd.

At least Big 'Arry had the good grace to admit this, describing the evening as the most uncomfortable night of his footballing life. Burnley fans will probably not take too much comfort from hearing this though.

Continuing the theme of relating topical persons to an equivalent in the sports world... who is Barack Obama? Potential candidates: Fabio Capello, Jose Mourhino, Martin Johnson... to be honest none of these guys really brings much of a message of hope.

Fantastic soap opera drama coming from Manchester City these days.

Firstly they cock up the alleged £100m transfer deal to bring Kaka to them... in the process calling AC Milan a bunch of 'bottlers'.

Secondly, Robinho walks out of training in Tenerife perhaps never returning and screwing everything up.

Quite what the Sheik is thinking now is anybody's guess; but he'd probably rather be the owner of the Queen Vic than Manchester City right now.

Is the Premiership turning into a competition to see which team can accumulate the highest number of jammy, one-goal - and often last minute - victories over the course of the season?

The Premiership's 'Big Four' (well, call that 'five' now that Arsenal, at least for the time being, have slipped out of this elite group) are all at it.

United went top of the league for the first time this season with yet another 1-0 win, this time at Bolton with a 90th minute goal. Apparently, six of their last seven league wins have been by a 1-0 scoreline. Chelsea have a history of grinding out unconvincing one-goal victories (and scored two goals in the dying seconds yesterday to overcome a resilient Stoke side, 2-1). Villa have been been riding with Lady Luck for a number of weeks now (typified by a 93rd minute own goal at Hull a few weeks ago that gave them a thoroughly undeserved 1-0 victory) while Arsenal appear to have reverted to the 'one-nil to the Arsenal' era of the early 90's. Liverpool got a generous share of their 'jam quota' at the beginning of the season with a whole series of unbelievable last-minute victories; Standard Liege, for example, are still scratching their heads as to how they lost to Gerrard and co. after totally outplaying them over the two legs of the Champions League qualifiers. My bet is that Liverpool will overcome Everton tomorrow evening with a 92nd minute Gerrard shot that takes 3 deflections on it's way in!

I'm looking forward to the day when the Premiership is won by a swashbuckling, Barcelona-like side that sweeps away every team before it. Or are these days unfortunately behind us?

With the announcement that Steve Jobs really is ill Apple's share price has tumbled and Apple fanboys around the world are sweating heaps.

I'm just thinking that there's something similar in football... Alex Ferguson. Granted, he doesn't have any medical conditions that we know of, apart from appearing slightly mad much of the time. However how big is the 'Ferguson premium' on United's 'value'?

I'll state that if it wasn't for the big rosy guy then United would be back in the 70s - playing second fiddle to Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. He's the man the team all turn to - the respect (or perhaps fear) he generates allows United to sign and keep their wunderkids like Rooney, Ronaldo etc. A different manager would probably not have a chance.

Another parallel with Steve Jobs is the temper problem, although Jobsy isn't known for throwing physical objects at people, he is known for going ballistic at the smallest things - a feeling a perfectionist like Sir A knows all too well.

My final parallel is that of succession planning, or rather a lack of it. Carlos Quieroz and Mike Phelan have been the latest no. 2s and Mike Phelan is certainly putting in some public appearances (perhaps he speaks better English than Carlos, but only marginally?). However neither of these guys seriously looks like taking over - Ferguson, much like Hitler, preferring his lackeys to do the work but the adulation to fall on himself.

So how much is this personality cult worth to United? I reckon that Fergie is even more important to United than Jobs is to Apple, and we're now seeing falls in Apple's stock of about 10% (the Jobs premium)... therefore I'll stick my neck out and say that Sir Alex is 15-20% of Manchester United.

Darts and the World's Strongest Man

Witty blog by the Guardian's Martin Kelner on British TV sports coverage over the Christmas break...