It is a very difficult place to go and pick up points Smith said
Posted in General on 23. Oct, 2010
“It is a very difficult place to go and pick up points,” Smith said. “There might have been occasions over this time when Everton have felt they were unlucky not to win, but the basis of it must be that we have not been good enough to win there and we have to go with that.”As long as we acquit ourselves well that’s the main thing. I have felt on the last couple of occasions that we have gone there, we have played well enough but haven’t got a win so we will have to make that our target.”Everton will be without Thomas Gravesen, who has a head wound, and Alan Stubbs, who has a thigh injury, tonight. Alessandro Pistone will have a fitness check on his back injury and Smith is likely to bring the makeshift striker Steve Watson back into defence and start Joe-Max Moore up front.David Weir will be suspended for Saturday’s trip to Sunderland after Everton failed in their appeal to have his red card against Fulham overturned.* A number of Everton stewards will sit among the away fans at Elland Road tonight in an attempt to stop any racist behaviour by supporters as part of a new initiative by the club.. John Gregory again spoke of the difficulties he faces in elevating Aston Villa to the Premiership’s ?te after seeing Juan Pablo Angel score both goals in his side’s 2-1 win over Ipswich on Monday night. “I’m not being negative but I know full well that we haven’t got the quality of depth that other clubs possess.”My hopes for the championship might change if I was maybe able to bolster the squad with more players. But I have to adhere to the way the club is run and I have to get on and make the best of what I have got.”I am asked if I would sell Angel He is an absolute legend here and the fans adore him.
If I was to sell him, I’d probably get lynched in the Doug Ellis Stand!”Gregory’s hand will be strengthened by the return to full training of the midfielder Hassan Kachloul. The Moroccan international was detained in hospital after suffering concussion three weeks ago. An initial brain scan revealed a burst blood vessel in the brain, but now Kachloul has been given a clean bill of health and will be in contention for Saturday’s Midlands derby with Derby County at Pride Park.Ipswich will now have to break a long-standing trend if they are to survive. No club since the formation of the Premiership has managed to avoid being relegated after languishing at the bottom of the pile at Christmas.But the Ipswich manager, George Burley, saw plenty of positives from his side’s showing and he said: “We were the better team in the first half and we closed Villa down very quickly.
We got a goal through Finidi George but then they equalised when we should have cleared our lines and their second goal got a wicked deflection.”We deserved at least a point and I can take a lot of positives from our performance, but sometimes when down the bottom you don’t get the breaks. There is still a lot of spirit and we can get out of this position.”. Leeds United’s decision to wash their hands of Lee Bowyer begs just one question. Where did they find all the soap?
Leeds United’s decision to wash their hands of Lee Bowyer begs just one question. Where did they find all the soap?His refusal to accept the fine of a month’s wages (approximately £80,000) and comply with an order to perform community work made his transfer-listing a formality. Indeed, yesterday’s rebellion by Bowyer speaks of either terrible arrogance or astonishingly inept advice.
His position is clearly that having been cleared of criminal charges, he expected the club to deliver on their public statement that as far as they were concerned he was innocent until proven guilty.What he seems to be ignoring is the accumulation of shame that piled upon his status as a £20,000-a week professional during the course of the trial. The extent of that shame was spelled out in graphic terms by his own manager in the book, Leeds United on Trial, that was staggeringly approved for serialisation in the News of the World last weekend.O’Leary told of how, after the two were charged, he gathered his players together, then pointed to Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate, who was found guilty of affray and like his team-mate faces legal costs of £1m, and said: “These two have disgraced us all They were running round Leeds drunk that night. The terrible consequences of the evening were that a human being was left on the floor as though he was nothing more than a piece of meat I was shouting at them Never before had they seen me like that I was incensed by what happened I was definitely lied to by Bow and Woody. When they left my office I knew they had been economical with the truth I was enraged when I learned what had taken place. We decided to get to the bottom of it by hiring a private investigator.”Such background information, makes the club’s initial stand on behalf of Bowyer and Woodgate highly questionable, and certainly calls into doubt the wisdom of playing Bowyer under the shadow of the impending court case.