Good week, bad week

13 April 2012

We round up who had a wonderful weekend of sport and those who had a wretched one.

GOOD WEEK

Chelsea
Chelsea temporarily put aside their stuttering league form and flew into the fourth round of the FA Cup after a 7-0 evisceration of Championship side Ipswich.

Despite the big win, the Italian chief Carlo Ancelotti kept his feet on the ground. "We have to play more games to say the bad moment has gone," said the Chelsea manager. "We don't have to be excited."

Tottenham
As the speculation that a certain celebrated winger may be joining Spurs on loan intensifies, another, younger, right-midfielder made a seismic impact as Tottenham deposed Charlton 3-0.

Andros Townsend, just 19 years of age, found the net from 20 yards to give Spurs the lead before Jermain Defoe struck twice to see his side through to the fourth round.

Notts County
52 league positions separated Sunderland and Notts County on Saturday, but just one goal proved the difference as County crept into the fourth round of the Cup with a 2-1 win. Craig Westcarr and Lee Hughes scored the goals that gave the League One side a famous victory over Premier League opposition.

Stevenage
The most astonishing result of the weekend? Stevenage 3-1 Newcastle United. Yet manager Graham Westley demanded more.

"We went into the game with a plan that was built around winning 5-0," he said after his side outmuscled the Magpies.

Stacy Long drilled home a deflected shot, team-mate Michael Bostwick struck from distance before Peter Winn scored a third for Stevenage after Newcastle's Joey Barton had found the net.

Martin Adams
Adams won his second BDO World Darts title in as many years after beating Dean Winstanley 7-5 on Sunday.

Adams trailed 5-4 at one stage, but he came back to take his third World title. "It means it's number three and that equals one or two records," said Adams. "I want to win a third one [in a row] next year."

BAD WEEK

Liverpool
What a dire few days it's been for the great club. The dignified, if doomed Roy Hodgson was cast aside and Kenny Dalglish was sent in to calm the storm.

Yet the Scot's first game on return was ruined by Manchester United, as Ryan Giggs's penalty sent United through to the fourth round.

"It's great to be back," said Dalglish, who then labelled the decision to give the penalty a "joke" as Liverpool fell out of the competition. King Kenny has returned, but much is to be done.

Jamie Mackie
The Queens Park Rangers manager, Neil Warnock, called Blackburn's El-Hadji Diouf a "nasty little person" after the striker was accused of verbally abusing QPR's Jamie Mackie, who was then carried off on a stretcher with a broken leg during his side's 1-0 third-round defeat. Terrible from Diouf, tragic for Mackie.

West Brom
Shane Long's strike for Reading helped consign Premier League West Brom to a 1-0 FA Cup defeat – and Roberto di Matteo's team even finished with 10 men. Jonas Olsson was dismissed having received a second yellow card, making it a miserable day for the Baggies.

Avram Grant
West Ham progressed to the fourth round of the FA Cup, beating Barnsley 2-0 at the weekend, but their manager has made a mistake with a few pithy comments.

Already under pressure with his side bottom of the Premier League, Grant reacted to executive Karren Brady's newspaper remarks about Steve Sidwell's aborted move to Upton Park.

"Maybe I will have a column in a newspaper and say what I think," said Grant. Bad move. Such comments will hardly help Grant's cause.

FIFA
Prime Minister David Cameron has finally put the record straight about how the FIFA Ex-co members acted in Zurich during England's failed bid pitch.

"I definitely had a number of those FIFA executives who looked me in the eye and shook my hand and said 'don't worry, we're with you'," he told Radio Five Live.

"I'm afraid that the world of football governance is rather murky in that way."

MORE ABOUT

Carlo Ancelotti

Chelsea F.c.

FA Cup

Ipswich

Good week, bad week

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