Ulrika fights to avoid relegation

It's the toughest battle supercool Sven-Goran Eriksson has ever faced. And today it seemed to be beyond even his diplomatic powers. The two women fighting over the England manager stepped up their respective campaigns with an unsporting war of words. At one end, Ulrika Jonsson, the blonde TV presenter, today branded her fellow Swede a "lying cad" and said he had not contacted her since news of their supposed affair broke.

At the other end, Nancy Dell'Olio, Eriksson's live-in Italian girlfriend of three years, who went out to dinner with him on Saturday night, said: "We have never been more united than we are now."

Eriksson, 53, today faced extra pressure in the form of a press conference - his first since claims about his love life were made on Friday. In what was supposed to be a straightforward press call to launch the England team's World Cup suits, the Swede will face demands to come clean about the ladies in his life.

On Saturday afternoon paparazzifriendly Miss Jonsson attended the Chelsea-Manchester United football match with her friend and fellow TV presenter Angus Deayton. Sitting yards away from Eriksson, the 34-year-old smiled and waved her arms as her favourite team, Manchester United, thrashed the opposition 3-0.

That evening, however, it appeared her dark-haired rival had control of the game, as the England manager and 37-year-old Ms Dell'Olio left his Regent's Park house for dinner at Knightsbridge restaurant San Lorenzo. In red satin and glittering diamonds, Ms Dell'Olio beamed for the cameras while the notoriously private Eriksson looked stony-faced at the pavement. Miss Jonsson went out to eat with her agent and friend Melanie Cantor, but the high-profile dinner date had obviously upset her.

"Sven is behaving like a lying cad," she stormed to friends. "He promised me it was over with Nancy but then takes her out to dinner and doesn't even call me. What kind of a man is he? He has run for the hills, put his head in the sand, hoping it all blows over. He is behaving like the worst kind of Tory politician caught with his trousers down."

Jonsson's friends say she has set a deadline of the end of the week, by which time Eriksson must get in touch or she will sever all contact. They say Eriksson had promised his relationship with Dell'Olio was essentially over, but that she was a "difficult woman" and he was sorting it out. The dinner at San Lorenzo suggested it was not yet over, as did Dell'Olio's comments afterwards.

She said she would speak after Eriksson at today's press conference, and added: "I can tell you though we have never been more united than we are now. We have been together for three years and we are still together now. That is the most important thing.