Bobby Zamora came off the bench to hit his first league goal at Craven Cottage in over a year to settle Fulham’s clash with Blackburn 3-2.
Former Blackburn favourite Damien Duff had struck twice for Fulham but Mark Hughes’ side were unable to hold on to their lead in the English Premier League encounter, with Grant Hanley and David Hoilett twice equalising for Rovers.
But Zamora, in his first league appearance since recovering from a broken leg, slid home the winner in the very last minute from the penalty spot.
Before the game, Fulham manager Mark Hughes insisted that his side was looking upwards and not downwards in the Premier League.
Blackburn, who started the day level on points with the West Londoners, will also be highly confident of beating the drop this season.
But safety is still some way from being confirmed for either side, though both teams seemed to be simply going through the motions with precious little goalmouth action in the uninspired opening stages at Craven Cottage.
It was not until the half-hour mark that either could fashion a chance, when Blackburn keeper Paul Robinson stopped smartly from midfielder Dickson Etuhu’s low effort.
It was Etuhu who set up Fulham’s opener seven minutes later when he picked out Damien Duff.
The winger, who spent seven years as a Blackburn player, cut on to his favoured left foot and drilled a fierce strike past Robinson with the aid of a deflection.
The home side’s lead lasted less than eight minutes, however, as Blackburn equalized on the stroke of half-time through Grant Hanley.
The Cottagers failed to clear from a corner, and Hanley’s deflected strike completely wrong-footed Mark Schwarzer and flew into the corner.
But his defensive partner Chris Samba almost handed Fulham the lead within three minutes of the re-start.
Samba got it all wrong when Duff fizzed in a low cross and only managed to slice it towards his own goal.
But with Robinson beaten, the ball bounced off the crossbar and out for a corner.
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Duff put his side back in front in the 59th minute.
Again, Robinson might have done better with the snap shot, which flew inside his near post.
As before, the lead lasted less than 10 minutes as Blackburn drew level through David Hoilett who, teed-up by Jason Roberts, smashed a volley past Schwarzer.
But Fulham finally landed their knockout punch when Bobby Zamora made no mistake from the penalty spot with less than sixty seconds left on the clock.
Michael Carrick missed training on Monday as England prepare for their must-win World Cup encounter against Slovenia.
The Manchester United midfielder sat out the session at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus after taking a blow to the ankle during training on Sunday.
He joined groin injury victim Ledley King of Tottenham on the sidelines ahead of the make-or-break game in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday.
The Three Lions must win against Slovenia to qualify for the last 16 following lacklustre draws against the United States and Algeria during a much-criticised campaign to date.
Meanwhile, Slovenia coach Matjaz Kek has warned England that his players believe they can win the pivotal game to seal their own passage to the knockout stages as group winners.
"The most important thing for such a small country as Slovenia is belief," he said following an opening 1-0 victory over Algeria and 2-2 draw with the United States on Friday.
"You must believe you can achieve, then you have a chance. That goes for any team and my team believe they can beat anyone.
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"I'm not thinking 'okay, we came to South Africa but we're small and we must try to avoid catastrophe'.
"It is more 'can I win against every team?' That is my objective."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish has backed Jonjo Shelvey to succeed whilst on loan at Blackpool, and has stated the midfielder is in his future plans.
The 19-year-old former Charlton man has found first-team opportunities difficult to come by since moving to Anfield, with a number of more senior players ahead of him in the pecking order.
Shelvey scored on his debut for The Seasiders in a 5-0 win over Bristol City, and Dalglish feels the loan move will benefit him in the long run.
I”t’s helpful to everybody. Jonjo’s a very promising player for us but the difficulty for us is to get him a game,” Dalglish told the club’s official website.
“He needs games and it’s a fantastic opportunity for Jonjo to do that.
“It’s educational for us because we’ll get to see him play and it’ll also be educational for Jonjo because he’s playing at a good level with a good club.
“It is important for us to use as many opportunities as we can to develop the players and if we can’t give them games here then we’ve got to look to get them playing somewhere else.
“It’s a chance for Jonjo to develop and push harder for a first-team spot here. We’ve put him out because we want him educated and to see him develop, not because we want to see him go. It’s purely progress for him,” the Scot continued.
Liverpool have also sent fringe players Joe Cole and Alberto Aquilani out on loan to Lille and AC Milan respectively, but but both may still have a future on Merseyside.
“They’re not forgotten. We keep monitoring them so we know where we’re going.
“For Alberto it’s an opportunity for him to go back home and if he does well then they’ll purchase him.
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“For Joe Cole it was a fantastic opportunity for him to go and play Champions League football and also in France, which is a league that I think will suit Joe down to the ground and he’s done really well since he’s gone there,” he concluded.
Manchester United have the advantage in their Champions League tie with Marseille despite a goalless draw in the first leg on Wednesday.Alex Ferguson’s side had the better chances to win the game but United will be confident of overcoming their French opponents when the two meet at Old Trafford on March 15 – even without finding a crucial away goal at the Stade Velodrome.The visitors made the brighter start to the game and attacked with purpose, with Nani shooting wide after Dimitar Berbatov’s neat lay-off and Darren Fletcher and Wayne Rooney sending in menacing crosses which United failed to capitalise on.Nani then earned a free-kick after theatrically throwing himself to the turf following Souleymane Diawara’s foul.And while the Portuguese winger sent the ball straight into the wall, Fletcher’s follow-up drive forced Marseille goalkeeper Steve Mandana into a smart save low down to his right.Both sides tried to stamp their authority on the game with extended periods of possession but neither United nor Marseille created much in the way of chances.Gabriel Heinze, who played under Ferguson for three years and left United in 2007, clipped in a cross that Brazilian striker Brandao acrobatically sent towards goals but it proved no trouble for Edwin van der Sar.Striker Andre Ayew then caught van der Sar napping as his corner almost flew directly in at the near post, but the veteran Dutchman recovered to smother the ball as the first half petered out.Marseille began the second 45 minutes with more intent, knowing they had to make the most of their home advantage in front of a vocal crowd inside the Stade Velodrome.Brandao stooped to connect with Lucho Gonzalez’s cross but could only direct his header straight at van der Sar, while moments later the striker was inches away from connecting with Ayew’s powerful low cross.United were on the back-foot and their midfield struggled to contain the lively Gonzalez, who was pulling all the strings for the hosts – but the Argentine just couldn’t find the killer pass.Ayew pulled a left-foot strike across goal in the 62nd minute, but it went well wide of lurking team-mate Brandao at the far post.The injection of veteran Paul Scholes to replace Darron Gibson in midfield with 20 minutes remaining inevitably had little effect on the scoreline.Berbatov tried his luck from distance as the visitors looked to get back into the match, while Frenchman Patrice Evra – booed throughout after his involvement in France’s World Cup fiasco – threatened down the left.But while the Premier League side nor Marseille could break the deadlock, advantage belongs to United for the second leg as their dreams of another treble-winning season continue.
Whilst Fabio Capello has picked a lot of good players for his England squad for the World Cup, there are some players who shouldn’t be on the plane to South Africa. Here is a run down of the top three in order of who is the least deserving:
3: Shaun Wright-Phillips
The Manchester City winger lost his place to Adam Johnson towards the end of the season as his form was so good. Wright-Phillips career hasn’t really taken off as he intended, after showing a lot of promise and earning a big money move to Chelsea he found himself back at his first club. He hasn’t progressed any further and whilst he has been reasonable for City this season hasn’t really warranted going to the World Cup. However neither has Theo Walcott based on this season’s form and Adam Johnson has only had half a season in the Premiership, so really it was down to Capello to decide who he thought would contribute the most to England.
Wright-Phillips is England’s most experienced right-winger so that could be why Capello has chosen him ahead of those two. But Walcott does potentially have more ability than Wright-Phillips based on his age and has also done more for England than him, although that is mainly based on that performance against Croatia. Capello couldn’t really have gone too wrong in picking either Wright-Phillips or Walcott as neither had an outstanding season for their club and most importantly whoever went was always going to be an understudy to Aaron Lennon anyway.
2. Michael Carrick
Carrick has had a very poor season for Manchester United and definitely should not be going to the World Cup in place of either Tom Huddlestone or Scott Parker. He seems to have a lost a lot of confidence in his own ability and his performances have shown this. This season he has been guilty of giving the ball away far too often in matches and hasn’t shown much of the passing ability he has, which at times can be world class.
One also has to ask what does Carrick bring to the England team? If England need to protect a lead then he can be thrown on to sure-up the midfield, but given his displays this season it wouldn’t fill you with the best of confidence giving him such a key role of ensuring that England don’t concede. He is a very one-dimensional player as he often will just play the ball sideways and then every now and then try a long-field pass which if it comes off can be effective but if not then it’s a waste of possession. Giving Carrick’s place to Scott Parker would have been much more of a useful decision as Parker can not only be used in a defensive role to protect a lead, but can also offer some drive to the midfield if England are in need of a goal. His performances for West Ham this season have been outstanding and there have been times where he has carried his team, it’s not surprising that he is the first player since Julian Dicks to have won Hammer of the year, two years running.
Parker could have been a great player for England to have on the bench in South Africa and it’s a shame that his place has been taken by Michael Carrick, who could potentially be an accident waiting to happen for England.
1. Emile Heskey
Scoring three goals in the Premiership and that being deemed good enough to go to the World Cup is laughable. Heskey should be nowhere near the squad, even if he volunteered to be the team’s bootboy. When you’ve got Darren Bent scoring 24 goals in an unfashionable Sunderland team and he’s left at home for a striker that manages three goals then something is seriously wrong. All this talk of Heskey’s link-up play is a nonsense as well, firstly it isn’t that great and a lot of it seems to stem from the fact that he will do one good pass or bit of movement that England will score from and it will be highlighted. But for every thing he does that leads to a goal there are several things that he does wrong that doesn’t lead to anything. Secondly for link-up player we already have Peter Crouch in the team, so unless he gets a bad injury Heskey’s presence isn’t even needed.
A lot of people are saying Heskey should be included because a statistic reads: Wayne Rooney has scored 10 England goals with Heskey in the team and two goals without him. But do people really think a player the calibre of Wayne Rooney really relies on Heskey to score goals for England? It is an interesting statistic no less but all of those goals won’t be all entirely Heskey’s making and he gets far too much credit for what he actually offers the team. The Aston Villa striker’s inclusion has been a total waste of a call-up and even Bobby Zamora had he not had injury problems should be going ahead of him. But the real victim in this is definitely Darren Bent who could simply have not done any more to persuade Fabio Capello to take him to South Africa.
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Do you agree with this assessment? Is there anyone else you wish hadn’t made the squad?
With 9-mintues to go before full-time he trudged off the Anfield turf, looking forlorn. He couldn’t believe his number – the iconic number-7 – was being held aloft again, calling an early end to his game. A clap of appreciation towards the Kop was accompanied by a mutter as he headed towards his replacement on the side-line. A handshake and a quick hug was afforded the club captain, but not the man who’s decision it was to withdraw him from the fray with Liverpool 2-1 up, but far from convincing. There was no hiding Luis Suarez’s displeasure as he passed Kenny Dalglish without making eye contact, head still shaking before taking his frustration out on a water bottle, then slouching down in his seat on the bench. He had scored the winner, but there was also disappointment.
Unlike other media outlets, I am not suggesting for one second that Suarez is unhappy with life at Anfield, or that this act of histrionics imply something similar – I’ll leave that to the trouble-causing tabloids and the likes of Talk Sport. This is about whether it is correct for the manager to take what seems to be an over-protective approach of a player who has been Liverpool’s best performer and most dangerous player since joining the club in January.
Of the eight league and cup games Liverpool have played so far this season, Suarez has started all bar one (away to Arsenal). However, he has completed 90-minutes just once. Indeed, his 81st minute showing versus Wolves on Saturday represented his longest period on the pitch this season, normally being ‘given a rest’ from around the 60th-75th minute. It’s no wonder his frustration is beginning to show. If his performance levels were well below par, then this would be a mute point, and the player could have little to complain about. But his form this season has drawn rave reviews and is of a consistently high-level – especially when compared to certain other players on the pitch, who are nowhere near the Uruguayan’s level, performance or effort-wise.
Far from appearing to be a prima donna, what adds to this is his burning desire to play the game and improve the clubs level. Uruguayan’s are renowned for their courage, and never-say-die attitude – an unquenchable will to win. Marrying this ferocious work-ethic to his sublime technical ability equates to being the oppositions worst nightmare – they are relieved to see the back of him, whilst he wants to play every minute. His own ‘tweet’ after the game stating: ‘I felt really sad and sorry because I always want to help my team to win the match!! Thanks for your support!’ and the man who made the decision to replace him, Kenny Dalglish also admitting as much: ‘He wants to be involved all the time. He wants to play for as many minutes as he can and he wants to score. The fans take to him because he is so genuine and 100 per cent committed’.
So is Dalglish right to protect him? Let us not forget, Liverpool’s ‘star’ players of recent years have been dogged by consistent injury problems. Indeed, Suarez was replaced by one, as Steven Gerrard made his latest return from injury. The man Suarez himself replaced at Anfield, Fernando Torres, was also no stranger to the treatment table, and without him in the side (before his last season) Liverpool struggled. Is Dalglish just ensuring the same mistakes are not made with Liverpool’s latest diamond? Lest we forget, Suarez is also coming into this season without a full break in two years. His summer of 2010 was taken up by the World Cup, whilst last summer he helped fire Uruguay to victory in the Copa America. The fear of his early burn-out must weigh heavily on Liverpool’s coaching staff. If Suarez was to suffer injury which could be avoided (Liverpool now have more quality cover upfront) then Dalglish would be held accountable.
A similar parallel is running down at Tottenham Hotspur. The enigmatic Rafael van der Vaart is also a player who’s found himself making-way more often than not, before 90-minutes is up. It has led to speculation that he is unhappy with the managers handling of his career, even though the player has a poor injury record and consistency issues. The Dutchman has even been quoted by a colleague inferring that he has a contract ‘which states that you are only allowed to play 70 minutes in each match’, a clear dig at Harry Redknapp’s substitution policy.
So, do fans think managers are right to ‘protect’ their better players in fear of burn-out or injury? Or is it simply over-protection, and these players should be left on the pitch whilst fit and performing, to cause as much havoc as possible?
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At the turn of the year, Tottenham were being discussed as genuine title contenders. Now, only a month on, the club have a long way to go to achieve Champions League football next season. Any title challenge would appear to have evaporated.
But what are the reasons for this sudden change? The 4-0 humbling at Craven Cottage in the 4th round of the FA Cup continued a worrying goal drought and was the sort of team performance not seen since Juande Ramos was in charge at White Hart Lane.
Have Spurs’ high-flying players begun to listen to the plaudits directed at them in the press? It seems many of the key protagonists over the last few weeks have really struggled to maintain the standards they set themselves during the autumn.
It is a sad reality of the British media, but the acclaim directed at players such as Gareth Bale, Rafael van der Vaart and Luka Modric has been a little far fetched. Bale in particular has seen his stock rise from an unpredictable left-back, a statistical anomaly on the fringes of the Tottenham squad, to a player rated as one of the best in Europe, almost exclusively because he can run fast.
His hat trick against Inter Milan and performance in the return fixture looks likely to win him a nomination for the PFA player of the year award, even though European exploits shouldn’t strictly be included in consideration for the accolade.
As Bale steamed past the Inter right back, Maicon, that night in the San Siro, pundits were quick to pronounce the Tottenham star as having the beating of “the best right back in the world.” Really? The Brazilian looked that night to possess all the pace and desire of a curry filled Kevin Pressman without hamstrings.
This is of course not Bale’s fault, and he has shown enough growth and promise to suggest he can be something very special, but praise of the nature he has received would affect even the most level-headed of players.
Many of Tottenham’s players have failed to quite deliver in the league games that have mattered most. The come-from-behind win at the Emirates was brilliant, but Spurs should have put a shaky Chelsea side away at White Hart Lane before Christmas and have undone much of their early season work by dropping points at St James’ Park and losing away at Everton.
The biggest disappointment was the negative performance against Manchester United, when the league leaders came to town in January. One Peter Crouch effort aside, Spurs looked listless going forward and in the biggest test of the club’s attacking flair, only Luka Modric’s endeavour and industry came out of the fixture with much credit.
The exultant praise is, however, not limited to the players. Harry Redknapp already appears a nailed on certainty to be Fabio Capello’s successor as England manager, the former concerns about the Spurs boss forgotten in a wave of sycophantic euphoria. Many plaudits have also forgotten the quite incredible amount of money Redknapp has been credited with which to build his squad. Imagine if David Moyes, for example, was allowed half those funds to spend at Goodison Park.
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Fans of the club will point to the lack of goals coming from the team’s front men. Each of Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch and Roman Pavlyuchenko have failed to match the endeavours of the creative players around them and would suggest it is this rather than the squad’s leading lights resting on their laurels that has cost Spurs over the last few weeks.
Whatever the reason for Tottenham’s recent dip in performance, there remains a massive amount for followers of the North London club to be optimistic about. Whilst the January transfer window may have promised much but delivered little, Spurs have a very fine squad with which to tackle the key fixtures at home and abroad during the remainder of the campaign. This is a group of players capable of significant European glory. Harry Redknapp may do well, however, to stop his players reading the papers over the next few weeks in an effort to keep their feet on the ground, at least for now.
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Newcastle are interested in signing Loic Remy from Marseille, and have made contact with the French club over the 25 year old, reports The Guardian.
Remy is currently one of Ligue 1’s biggest stars, but a move to the Premier League could be likely as North London rivals Tottenham and Arsenal have also declared their interest in the Frenchman.
This summer at St James Park so far has been full of plenty of talk and very little action, and the speculation surrounding Demba Ba and a possible move away from Newcastle has been reignited as Rubin Kazan line up a £7 million for the former West Ham man, with a week left until his release clause expires.
Having been valued at £15 million, Remy would no doubt prove to be a fantastic attacking option for the Magpies, and Alan Pardew is looking to negotiate getting the Marseille man for a cheaper price as he enters the last year of his contract at Stade Velodrome.
Arsenal and Spurs are also interested however, and both have done significant strengthening attacking wise already this summer, as the battle for a top four place could become even more hotly contested in the upcoming season.
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The 31st of August. Just another day in the football calendar, albeit one without any actual football, but distinguished slightly by the ending of the time period allotted to register new players. Little more than a necessary logistical failsafe, to cross the i’s and dot the t’s and generally make sure all the cumbersome bureaucratic paper work is completed before we exit the first month of the season. Right? WRONG Bitches! For this is Super Awesome Magic Transfer Deadline Day! Woooo! Only the wickedest frickin’ day of the year! Like Christmas mixed with New Year, sprinkled with Easter, only with Jim White – That’s right, JIM WHITE!!! – That bloke you might recognize off Sky Sports News if you watch it enough, PLUS that one who’s going out with Ant & Dec. OMG!!!
Yes, Transfer Deadline Day indeed. The one day of the year when Sky Sports News’ anchors get to pretend they’re rock stars in their own heads whilst shivering, terrified reporters stand around in car parks like idiot beacons, attracting only the dimmest and ugliest people from around the country to swarm around them doing silly things while they report that something’s probably happening in a building quite nearby.
Sky have always been hyperbole whores of course. Never ones to shun bombast for understated subtlety and perspective, but I’d forgotten just how important they considered themselves in the scheme of all this. Very early on it became apparent that this wasn’t going to be as exciting or headline grabbing as last January’s window, with Luka Modric in Malta, Wesley Snejider in Holland, and Manchester City revealing their main interest of the day was making sure Owen Hargreaves reached their medical facility in one piece. This wasn’t going to stop Sky Sports News from making it exciting though. Hell no. Even if this solely involved telling us how exciting it was every 5 minutes.
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At some point between the great Robinho & Berbatov window of ‘08 and the infamous Torres & Carroll Christmas of ’11, Sky Sports decided their own reporting of the transfers was almost as important as the transfers themselves. And so gradually the reporting of Deadline Day became less a standard rolling news item and more a one off, high-end entertainment event, complete with its own headline act superstar – Jim White. Yes, THE Jim White (well no, not actually, he plays snooker) who we were told at regular intervals was “on his way” or “in the building” whilst inter-cut with promo cards advertising his evening anchorship featuring his ominous, pouting visage along side Natalie Sawyer. This was even more disconcerting as they were done in the style of a boxing promo card, with both protagonists on either side of the screen between big lettering of their names, which made it look just a little bit like Jim White was going to fight Natalie Sawyer at 8pm, which at least might have gone some way to explaining why they were all treating him like such a big shot.
At one particular high point, SSN even returned from an advert break with footage of Jim walking into the building on his phone, which could have been a brilliant, sophisticated parody of the endlessly recycled unenlightening footage of players wandering in and out of places on their phones they play on Sky hourly, but which I’m pretty sure was merely an actual desperate bit of cannibalized reporting. Sky had gone meta. They were now reporting on their own reporters turning up to do some reporting. When they weren’t trying to hawk us their new mobile SkyGo service that is.
Continue to the NEXT PAGE…
So excited were they all getting at their own excitement that Georgie Thompson – preceding the mighty White and sporting the hair of a Lion, – on noticing that there weren’t nearly enough local idiots wandering outside of Eastlands annoying Vinny O’Connor like there were at Melwood and the Britannia, began to actually encourage people watching to “get down to Eastlands and support him.” Yes, support a reporter. Perhaps with an I Heart Vinny banner? Or maybe she was imagining swarms of diehards trotting down in solidarity to thank Ol’ Vin for his years of top class reporting. “I was there back in ’03 when you covered the signing of Robbie Fowler. Fantastic reporting that, I just want you to know how much that meant to me, lad. Can you sign this?”
The madness of Queen Georgie continued as an hour later she casually, and possibly accidentally, dropped the bombshell that she was “for sale, but it’ll cost you.” Which was presumably received with relish by the multi-millionaire footballers watching (whose tweets telling us they were watching were being read out frequently to boost Sky’s already bulging self importance and fill the gap in lieu of any actual news) but probably came as quite a surprise to Ant and/or Dec.
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Eventually, at about nine, after around eighteen hours of telling us exciting things were happening, some exciting things started actually happening. These were not, unfortunately, of the record breaking exciting variety, and focused mainly on how long it would take Peter Crouch to pass a medical test designed for a normal man, what number Craig Bellamy would wear in his second stint at Liverpool and whether Arteta and Benayoun would make it in time to complete their last minute (read last couple of hours) deals at Arsenal. They obviously would, but Sky’d be damned if this would dampen the hyperbole.
At one point earlier in the day we’d been promised “exciting news if you’re a Manchester United fan after the break” which was then bafflingly never returned to ever again, and as the day drew to a close someone desperately made up a rumor about Kaka to Spurs, which gave us a good forty minutes of excited discussion about how crazy this all was, and typical of crazy ol’ deadline day, before Harry Redknapp, who’d only left his car once in 36 hours and only then to go to the loo, appeared from his car window (naturally) to laugh it off. Before presumably driving out of shot and kicking himself for not thinking of it first.
As we finally reached the tortuous end of this ridiculous day, the drama having been wrenched up even higher in the final hours by intermittent shots of Big Ben coupled with Sky’s mandatory serving of inappropriately aggressive music, the camera cut to black and fireworks – yes, f***ing FIREWORKS! – filled the screen to announce the end of the window.
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Flying ninja Jesus on a bicycle. If there was ever a good argument for scrapping the Transfer Window it’s Sky’s coverage of it’s own coverage of Deadline Day. You know they’d have this on pay-per-view if they could get the figures.
I’m off to sit at my desk in a suit pretending to be Jim White. Beats playing football.
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Sunderland boss Steve Bruce has ruled out breaking the bank on a big-name replacement for Darren Bent.
Bent, the club’s leading goal-scorer so far this season, left Sunderland for Aston Villa on Tuesday in a record transfer worth an initial 17 million pounds, rising to 24 million with add-ons.
And Bruce has moved quickly to quash expectations that the bulk of the funds will be reinvested in a direct replacement for the former Charlton and Tottenham Hotspur striker.
“I have to tell all the Sunderland fans if they think I am going to go out for a marquee signing and spend 20 million pounds, it’s not going to happen,” Bruce said.
“We have got to look and make sure we are patient and hope. I will try to bring in a couple of bodies that will help us in the short term, and look to go again in the summer.”
“We are looking … but it is like puppies at Christmas – you don’t just go and buy one for the sake of it because they do need nurturing and looking after.”
“We will make sure we try to do our homework. We have got a couple of irons in the fire and we will bring the right people to the club.”
“Of course, people will try to take my pants down and try to give me a smacking, but we will be okay with that.”
“I am sure people will try it on, but I’m a bit long in the tooth for that.”
Bruce has been closely linked with a move for Stoke City forward Ricardo Fuller, who may struggle for first-team opportunities if Villa’s John Carew arrives at the Britannia Stadium.
“To be fair, we are putting the net far and we know there are certain individuals who could be available.”
“Ricardo Fuller could be one of those, but we have got the irons in the fire, four or five as we speak.”
“I like Ricardo Fuller, I think he has been a very good player in the Premier League, and we will see.”
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“Just watch this space for the next 24, 48 hours.”
Bruce also confirmed that Paris Saint-Germaine forward Stephane Sessegnon could be on his way to the Stadium of Light.
“That is a possibility as we speak – but it has been a possibility for two weeks, so we are hoping.”
“We are trying now to exhaust every avenue and see what is available at this particular time.”