Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has defended his players amid reports of an acrimonious squad meeting after the 4-1 loss at Arsenal at the weekend, their second Premier League defeat in a row.
Speaking ahead of Wednesday’s FA Cup quarter-final replay at Blackburn Rovers, Rodgers praised “a great bunch of players who work tirelessly every single day and give me everything”.
Asked if a crisis meeting had taken place, he said: “It was nothing, really. It was just purely analysing performances and where we are at ... it’s just unfortunate something else was made of it”.
Rodgers said meeting was par for the course at Liverpool, who also lost their previous league match at home to Manchester United.
“We have lots of meetings here in terms of analysing performances,” he said. “This was no different really to a whole host of meetings that we have had throughout the year.”
Fenerbahce
The Turkish Super League has been suspended for a week in the wake of the attack on Fenerbahce’s team bus, the Turkish football federation said on Monday.
The bus was shot at after Saturday’s match at Rizespor. “We believe the incident was a terrorist attack, targeting not only Fenerbahce but Turkish sports. We decided to postpone all league and cup games for a week,” federation chairman Yildirim Demiroren said.
The pause came after Fenerbahce had called on Sunday for a ban on all footballing activities.
In a statement, the club called the attack an “assassinaton attempt”, linking it to hostility following match-fixing allegations that have swirled around them for months.
Juventus
Claudio Marchisio is back from injury as Juventus bid to overturn a 2-1, first-leg deficit to Fiorentina in the second leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final.
The Italy midfielder had been out with a knee injury, but he is back in training ahead of Tuesday’s tie in Florence.
“Marchisio is doing fine, he’s available and today we’ll assess whether he’s match fit or not. The few days of rest have helped him,” Juventus coach coach Massimiliano Allegri. Juventus will still have to do without Andrea Pirlo as he recovers from a hamstring injury, and Allegri is set to replace stalwart Gianluigi Buffon in goal with understudy Marco Storari.
“Juventus were stunned by two Mohamed Salah goals in the first leg in Turin last month.
AC Milan
AC Milan have slammed alleged racism towards one of their youth teams as “simply unacceptable”.
Black players on Milan’s Under 10 team were allegedly subject to racist abuse in Sunday’s 4-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain in the Universal Cup.
Milan say they do “not want to magnify the issue” and “truly hope that these reports aren’t true or that it was simply a sporadic incident.” The youth tournament is taking place at Forte dei Marmi in Tuscany.
Almeria
Primera Liga strugglers Almeria on Monday named former Barcelona player Sergi Barjuan as their new coach until the end of the season.
Barjuan, 43, replaces Juan Ignacio Martinez, who was sacked after four months in charge following Almeria’s 4-1 loss to Levante on Sunday.
With nine games to go, Almeria, in 18th and one point adrift of safety, have turned to the former Barca and Spain left-back to rescue their flagging season, the club without a win in seven games stretching back to early February.
Sergi, who was a youth coach at Barca before taking over second-division side Recreativo Huelva, is Almeria’s fourth coach of the season, with his first game in charge tomorrow against Barca at Camp Nou.
Fifa
Fifa presidential candidate Prince Ali bin Al Hussein says the scandal-hit organisation will struggle to replace sponsors and be damaged financially if Sepp Blatter remains in charge.
Five of Fifa’s top 14 sponsors decided in recent months not to extend their deals. None of the departing sponsors, including Sony and Emirates Airline, spoke out publicly against world football’s governing body.
But Prince Ali of Jordan has used his Fifa campaign manifesto, which he launched on Monday, to express concerns that corruption allegations are putting off commercial backers.
“Sponsors have begun to vote with their feet. If drastic action is not taken urgently to restore the image of our governing body, we can expect revenues to reduce and, in turn, monies available to national associations to also go down,” he said.
Queens Park Rangers
Queens Park Rangers manager Chris Ramsey will put his friendship with Aston Villa counterpart Tim Sherwood on hold when the teams meet in a Premier League relegation battle on Tuesday night.
Ramsey and Sherwood worked together at Tottenham Hotspur for several years.
“Tim is a good friend of mine, but for 90 minutes we will be going head to head,” Ramsey said on Monday. “The game isn’t about me versus Tim, it’s about QPR versus Villa.”
A 4-1 win over West Bromwich Albion at the weekend means 19th-place QPR head to Villa Park within three points of their hosts, who lost 3-1 at Manchester United on Saturday.
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