People are rather too patronising of lower league football at times. Gone are the days of unplayable quagmires containing 22 men who had been on the piss the previous night, a mix of not-quite-made-its and on-the-way-downs. But rather like John McCrirrick's appearance on wife swap, you get an incident that suddenly makes you think that [.
Olivier Giroud emphatically finishes of Mathieu Debuchy's through pass. Florent Malouda scores
following a goalmouth scramble. Germany cuts the gap through veteran Cacau but it proves too little
too late. Tony Kroos and Mesut Oezil were excellent but Germany's finishing let them down.
Jonjo Shelvey scored one and set up another as England moved within touching distance of the UEFA
Under-21 Championship play-offs with a 2-0 victory in Azerbaijan.
Liverpool midfielder Shelvey's first goal for the Young Lions followed Steven Caulker's third to
send Stuart Pearce's men five points clear at the top of qualifying Group Eight with one match
remaining.
Ireland U21 international Robbie Brady could have scored a hat-trick, but ended up without
a goal to his name on Saturday, as Hull beat Portsmouth 1-0 at the KC Stadium.
The Manchester United on-loan winger was thwarted three times by Pompey keeper Jamie Ashdown, whose
heroics were enough to limit the Tigers to just one goal, scored by the equally impressive Robert
Koren early in the first-half.
To take a perhaps unexpected angle on this, poor Samba Diakité. Making his QPR debut on loan
from Nancy in France, the Mali international found himself showing remarkable promise in his first
half an hour of Premier League football, marred only by a slight tendency to commit fouls. After
what may have been his seventh, a late lunge on a flying Bryan Ruiz, Diakité was shown a red card
and the match was effectively settled.
The last few minutes of the match at Craven Cottage were difficult to bear for those Spurs fans
with the healthiest of hearts so it's certain it wouldn't have been pleasant viewing for manager
Harry Redknapp – a fact that Joe Jordan acknowledged after the game.
"Never mind the goalmouth scramble, that last half hour will have been a good test for Harry,"
Joe said after the match.
If an EPL footballer accidentally kicks a fellow player in the face during a goalmouth scramble
in a pre-season friendly (0.34), we are unlikely to run a post on the matter. We prefer to avoid
violent confrontation unless alcohol honour is involved.
Adam Morgan scored a fantastic double as a rampant Liverpool U18s beat Stevenage Borough 8-0 at the
Academy in a pre-season friendly on Saturday afternoon.
The prolific striker came on in the second-half for his first outing since playing for England in
the U17s World Cup in Mexico, and netted with an audacious strike from 40-yards out.
UTRECHT, Netherlands FC Twente passed up the chance to go two points clear at the Eredivisie summit
after being held in a 1-1 draw away to FC Utrecht. PSV's defeat to ADO Den Haag on Saturday gave
Twente an opportunity to head top of the league, but teenager Leon de Kogel put Utrecht ahead [...]
