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10/26/2007 - London, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Manchester City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has made quite a splash in his first year as manager at the club, leading the team to seven wins in their first 10 games and a third-place position in the league table.
However, Eriksson has made it known that he doesn't expect City to finish among the top four, which means that a dip in the team's results at some point is inevitable.
While Eriksson has gotten the most out of his team so far, he knows that Chelsea is clearly the more talented team and that many around England are still questioning how good this City team really is.
Manchester City was not expected to turn things around so quickly after finishing in the bottom half of the table last season, but Eriksson has gotten good efforts from players like Blumer Elano and Martin Petrov to carry the team.
While City is not a dazzling side to watch, they are quite effective in what they do. The club is solid defensively and has a way of getting timely goals when they matter most.
Elano especially has risen to the occasion recently, scoring four goals in the team's last three games, including two game-winners.
The 26-year-old midfielder was signed from Ukrainian side Shakhtar Donetsk in August, and he has proven to be one of many good signings by the new Swedish manager.
Chelsea enters the match four points behind City and is looking to build momentum for a run at the top teams. The Blues are currently seventh in the Premiership table, but their talent is top notch.
Eriksson knows all about striker Didier Drogba in particular, who has scored three goals in City's last two trips to London, but Eriksson also knows that Chelsea is not just about Drogba's brilliance.
"We don't have a special approach for Drogba but we have trained on certain things (this week) and talked about it," Eriksson said. "We'll carry on talking about Chelsea up until the game itself. We won't mark Drogba man-for- man, we won't change many things but you have to be aware that he's strong, has great technique and he's quick. If you are in the wrong position against him, it's goodnight."
Drogba has yet to find his top form this season, scoring just twice in six games for a Chelsea team that has struggled to find goals all year.
The team is among the worst in goals scored this year, but with the likes of Drogba, Frank Lampard, Salomon Kalou and Michael Essien, that can all change very quickly.
In other action in England on Saturday, bottom-half clubs Birmingham and Wigan get together at St Andrews Stadium, Manchester United tries for its eighth consecutive EPL win against Middlesbrough, Newcastle has put together two straight wins and will try for a third when the club visits Reading, Fulham and Sunderland look like teams that will struggle to avoid relegation this season and they meet up at the Stadium of Light and West Ham travels to Fratton Park for a contest against Portsmouth.
On Sunday, Liverpool hosts Arsenal in a big clash near the top with both sides unbeaten but Arsenal having won eight of its nine games while Liverpool has claimed just five victories. Bolton sits at the bottom of the table and hosts Aston Villa, Everton has lost its last two games and visits Derby and Tottenham, with just one win in 10 games, entertains Blackburn.
<< Title already starting to slip away from AC Milan
Milan, Italy (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - If you took one look at the Serie A
standings prior to this weekend's games, you would not find AC Milan in the
top half of the table.
Rather, Milan would be sitting in 11th place, 10 points
<< Bordeaux, Valenciennes set for top-six tussle
Bordeaux, France (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Bordeaux and Valenciennes will take to
the pitch at Parc Lescure on Saturday separated by only one point, with both
sides sitting in top-six positions.
However, both teams will be playing in plac
<< Canucks aim to halt skid versus Capitals
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Vancouver Canucks will try to avoid their first three-
game losing streak in nearly a year when they visit the Washington Capitals
tonight at the Verizon Center.
The Canucks, who set franchise records with 105 points a
<< Pettersen stays atop the leaderboard in Thailand
Chonburim, Thailand (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Suzann Pettersen's wild second round of
four-under 68 on Friday featured only seven pars, but the four-time winner
this season remained atop the leaderboard after the second round of the Honda
LPGA Th
Blackhawks' Koci on IR after fight >>
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago Blackhawks placed forward David
Koci and defenseman Andrei Zyuzin on the injured reserve list on Friday. They
also recalled center Dave Bolland from Rockford (AHL).
Koci, 26, left the Blackha
FSU grooming Proctor for interim athletic director role >>
Tallahassee, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Florida State University named Dr.
William L. Proctor as special assistant to the president for athletics, a
newly created, temporary position.
The new position was created to provide for Proc
Weather plays major factor in Breeders' Cup >>
Oceanport, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Steady rain continues to fall at Monmouth
Park early Friday afternoon as the first race of the day began. The main track
was listed as muddy for the two-year-olds in the six-furlong sprint.
The turf course is
Nationwide Tour Championship on; Q School location changed >>
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The PGA Tour made two important
announcements Friday regarding the Nationwide Tour Championship and the first
stage of the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament.
The Nationwide Tour Championship, s
My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
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