UFO Info Week-End

I thought the ref did well in difficult circumstances Mick Jones Plymouth’s caretaker manager said

“I thought the ref did well in difficult circumstances,” Mick Jones, Plymouth’s caretaker manager said. “I wouldn’t argue with any of the decisions.” Police will study video evidence before deciding whether to prosecute players.Back to the calm at the top of the First Division where Wolves kept up their remarkable away form – and reclaimed second place – when they went to Oakwell and beat Barnsley 3-1, their 10th win on the road.A Iwan Roberts flick-on put the Wolves striker Steve Bull clear with only one minute and 39 seconds on the watch That scenario usually has only one ending It was Bull’s 18th goal of the season. Roberts scored Wolves’ second, a header from Jamie Smith’s cross, and, after Darren Sheridan had briefly given Barnsley hope, Stephen Froggatt ensured another happy awayday for Wolves.Bolton, meanwhile, kept their 10-point lead intact when they recovered from Tom Cowan’s goal at Huddersfield to win 2-1, Chris Fairclough and Gerry Taggart scoring. Sheffield United also stormed back from an early reverse when bottom club Grimsby took the lead at Bramall Lane. But a Jan Age Fjortoft hat-trick ensured a 3-1 win to keep the Blades fourth.Norwich, fifth, were involved in a remarkable 4-4 draw at the Valley. Charlton were down to 10-men from the 28th minute when Stuart Balmer was sent off with the score 0-0. When Darren Eadie scored Norwich’s fourth in the 84th minute they had a two-goal lead but goals by Jason Lee (87) and Carl Leaburn (88) made Charlton’s point..

Arsenal’s well-publicised intention of signing the Liberian George Weah from Milan at the end of the season was put in doubt yesterday when the striker revealed that the Italian giants had no plans to release him. The club’s coach, Arrigo Sacchi, had been reported as saying after the team’s poor performance in the European Champions’ League that he would put several players up for sale at the end of the season. But Weah said yesterday: “I’m not in that list – I’m not lined up for sale. I’ll stay at Milan at the end of the season – I’m not moving out.”
Such is Milan’s dependence on Weah that they were sending a private jet to bring him back to Italy early today after his African Nations’ Cup game for Liberia in the 1-1 draw against Tanzania yesterday. Weah may be asked to play the second half at Perugia where Milan should prove too strong with Christophe Dugarry and Marco Simone in attack.

Perugia will look to their Brazilian striker, Muller, to provide their cutting edge.Fiorentina face a much stiffer task against the Serie A leaders, Juventus, and their coach, Claudio Ranieri, is understandably apprehensive about the match. The home game comes at a delicate time for Fiorentina, who were surprisingly beaten 2-1 by the third-from-bottom team, Verona, last Sunday, and are now in 11th place, 13 points behind Juventus.”This is my most difficult game since I’ve been at Fiorentina. We’re at a turning point, it’s now or never,” Ranieri said.Bitter rivalry between Juventus and Fiorentina has in the past led to litigation between prominent Fiorentina fans, such as the film director Franco Zeffirelli, and the former Juventus president, Giampiero Boniperti, and it will be equally serious today.Ranieri seems likely to opt for a 4-4-2 formation with the ex-Everton winger Andrei Kanchelskis partnering the captain, Gabriel Batistuta of Argentina, in attack. Sweden’s Stefan Schwarz, Portugal’s Rui Costa, Sandro Cois and Giovanni Piacentini form a talented midfield. Juventus travel south with an almost full-strength squad, missing only two long- term injury victims – the Croat striker Alen Boksic and the midfielder Antonio Conte.In Spain, Bobby Robson, the Barcelona manager linked with Blackburn, finds himself under even more pressure after his side’s 2-0 defeat against Real Sociedad on Thursday.

Barcelona are now six points behind Real Madrid and must win their tricky home game against Real Zaragoza today. The fixture has a reputation of being high-scoring and gives Zaragoza the chance to avenge the 5-3 defeat earlier this season.. No aspect of the latest Ian Wright affair was more predictable than that he should be given a hero’s welcome when he walked down through the studio audience and took his seat for Carlton Television’s Do I Not Like That programme on Thursday night. All that mattered was Wright’s celebrity – and who would dispute that his clash with Peter Schmeichel had done nothing if not put on a few more at the box-office. Anyone who had bought air time during the commercial breaks must have been laughing all the way to the North Bank. In an age when Eric Cantona is able to turn to commercial advantage his assault on a spectator, and a trio of England penalty-missers does likewise by mocking the emotional investment a nation had made in them, it is surely not too cynical to imagine that somewhere behind a Soho advertising agency’s discreet brass nameplate a Wright-Schmeichel number is already at the story-board stage. Doubtless it would culminate in the moment of kiss- and-make-up that neither the players concerned nor their clubs have so far shown much interest in.
In the atmosphere of moral relativism that pervaded Do I Not Like That, engendered in part by its host, Richard Littlejohn, made a reasonable attempt to put Wright on the spot.

But still the player’s shaky logic – that because he had made contact with the ball, what was the problem with the tackle – went unchallenged. Asked what went on in the tunnel at the end of the game, Wright was allowed to get away with the reply, “Nothing”.The issue is confused by the element of alleged racism, denied on Schmeichel’s behalf by the Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson. Football’s anti- racism movement has done much to help change – though by no means get rid of – such attitudes among crowds. But at pitch level football is the most racially integrated sport in Britain, and in recent years the idea that a black player might be abused by a white fellow-pro on account of the colour of his skin has become virtually unthinkable.Perhaps more surprising has been Arsene Wenger’s reaction to his first real taste of controversy since joining a club where indiscipline on and off the pitch had been a feature for years Everything about Wenger speaks of decency and rectitude. English football has been dignified by the presence of this urbane and courteous Frenchman, whose effect on players has been so enlightening that even Paul Merson talks of going into coaching because of his boss’s example. Yet on the Wright issue Wenger’s attitude would seem dissmissive were his defence of the player not mounted in such temperate tones.At the St Albans hotel where Arsenal players convened on Friday in advance of today’s Premiership match at home to Wimbledon, Wenger fielded questions about Wright calmly and with endless patience but without ever suggesting he felt there was anything very reprehensible about a tackle that most observers saw as potentially dangerous in the extreme “It was a little bit high, I agree,” he said.