“I couldn’t seem to find any form and I was missing them all over the place,” said O’Sullivan, who is attempting to capture his first title since the Regal Scottish Masters 14 months ago.”I was so bad I said to myself that if I was going to lose I was at least going to enjoy myself out there and I enjoy playing left-handed.”There was no discernible improvement as O’Sullivan scrambled home in a scrappy fourth frame on the blue, but after the interval he produced some high scoring. RONNIE O’SULLIVAN played both left and right-handed yesterday at the China Open on his way to a 5-2 victory over Pakistan’s Shokat Ali. O’Sullivan, who is now in the quarter-finals of the year’s closing world ranking event, delighted the crowd as he swapped hands at will as he took the last four frames to secure the win.
Early in the match Shokat, winner of gold at last year’s Asian Games, took advantage of O’Sullivan’s many mistakes to build a 2-1 lead and an upset looked possible. But they wanted to make me wait because they think they have all the power in the world now. That’s just ignorance on their part.”Now they don’t know where to go They want me to break my fight with Coley I don’t need Trinidad I’m not going to change my schedule for him.”. Every time I watch that fight, I give myself another round,” he said “I demanded a rematch right away We offered them $20m [pounds 12.5m]. OSCAR DE LA HOYA, who suffered the first defeat of his seven-year professional career in September, will return to the ring on 26 February at New York’s Madison Square Garden for a welterweight contest against the World Boxing Council’s top-ranked Derrell Coley, who has a record of 34 wins, 24 inside the distance, one loss and two draws.
De la Hoya, 26, who has recorded 25 knock-outs in his 31 professional fights, is still angry at the defeat by the Puerto Rican, Felix Trinidad, on a majority decision in Las Vegas but declared that he had refused to abandon the Coley bout for a rematch with Trinidad.
De la Hoya, who had been accused before the Trinidad fight of avoiding his major rival, still cannot come to terms with the defeat “It was very difficult to accept that loss. Marcel Desailly, the Chelsea defender, with 89 votes, and the former Manchester United goalkeeper, Peter Schmeichel, with 72, were also voted into the team, with Italy’s Paolo Maldini topping the poll 117 votes.EUROPEAN ALL-STAR TEAM: Peter Schmeichel (Denmark); Lilian Thuram (France), Paolo Maldini (Italy), Marcel Desailly (France), Sinisa Mihajlovic (Yugoslavia), David Beckham (England), Rui Costa (Portugal), Zinedine Zidane (France), Pavel Nedved (Czech Rebublic), Raul (Spain), Oliver Bierhoff (Germany).. United have a second 15-year-old, Kieron Richardson, who travels from Essex to play for them. He, too, was signed before the deadline.David Beckham has been included in a European All-star Team which was selected by more than 200 journalists from across the continent on the basis of performances during the Euro 2000 qualifying campaign.The Manchester United midfielder, who is in the running for the European Footballer of the Year award to be announced next week, received 80 votes for the place in right midfield.
The Premier League have checked into the 15-year-old’s background and confirmed that he was attached to United before they imposed the rule that such players should live within 90 minutes’ driving distance of their club.In future the Premier League will stop players signing for distant teams before they are old enough to leave school, but it is expected that the richer clubs will try to get round it by moving their families into the area. That cost of pounds 100,000 a game and over pounds 1m a goal shows the gamble involved in Boro’s policy of signing older playersManchester United can continue to play their teenage prospect, Kalum Mooniaruck, in their academy team despite the fact that he lives in Bishop’s Stortford. The fading genius would probably also prefer a move away from the headlines and, possibly, the memories of his former greatness.
The extrovert midfielder cannot be guaranteed a game at Boro, even in the absence of Paul Ince. He was not in the squad for Tuesday’s Worthington Cup defeat at Tranmere Rovers. Boro’s manager, Bryan Robson, who is coming under pressure from some sectors of the club’s support, might have to cut the price more if he is not to be stuck with continuing to pay Gascoigne’s wages of about pounds 32,000 a week.In transfer fee and wages, Gascoigne has made a pounds 6m dent in the Boro bank account so far, but he has played fewer than 50 games for his new club, scoring just a handful of goals. Leading Major Soccer League sides, including Washington DC United, are interested in Gazza but they are reluctant to pay transfer fees. Gascoigne has had so many problems on and off the pitch in the last few years that there are few clubs in England that would take him on.
MIDDLESBROUGH ARE prepared to sell Paul Gascoigne for pounds 1m if they can find a buyer. The former England midfielder cost them pounds 3.5m when he moved from Rangers two seasons ago but now even Gascoigne’s reduced valuation may prove too much to allow him a move to the United States. That’s why in the cup ties over the last few years they’ve really enjoyed it because we’ve been to a few finals.”But after last year when we were knocked out of both cups and finished mid-table, you see people getting restless.”Robson’s immediate task is to lift his players for the visit of Tottenham to the Riverside on Saturday and to end a run of only one win in seven games.. “Middlesbrough fans have always been used to either promotion or relegation and they’ve always lived on a knife-edge.
Last year’s top-10 Premiership finish was seen as the foundation for a new beginning, and the addition of Paul Ince and Christian Ziege to that squad and the return of Juninho this summer further increased expectations.Ince was ruled out after surgery on a hernia for both cup defeats and Gary Pallister played only 40 minutes at Wrexham because of a back injury.Juninho is yet to convince Robson that he should invest the pounds 7m or so it would take to make his temporary move from Atletico Madrid permanent.Robson, who signed a five-year deal last year, said: “When I came here five-and-a-half years ago everybody said around the area that they’d be quite happy if we were just a mid-table Premiership side,” he said. What now remains is the challenge of reviving their fast receding hopes of a qualifying for European competition for the first time or, at least, finishing higher in the Premiership than their ninth place of last season.The disappointment of those two cup defeats has galvanised the anti-Robson brigade, but in the chairman, Steve Gibson, Robson has a loyal ally.Robson’s critics were unhappy at decision to substitute his Brazilian midfielder, Juninho, during the 0-0 draw with Wimbledon on 27 November, and there has also been growing disquiet with the manager’s reliance on a five-man defence, although injuries forced him to field a flat back four at Tranmere.Robson arrived at Ayresome Park in May 1994 after ending his long and successful playing career at Manchester United. But Robson, the Middlesbrough manager, is facing perhaps the most difficult test of his management career to date as he attempts to pick up the club’s season after his side suffered a giant-killing double.
The 2-1 Worthington Cup quarter-final defeat at Tranmere Rovers on Tuesday, although an improvement on the the FA Cup surrender at Second Division Wrexham four days earlier, has proved the final straw for Robson’s increasingly vocal critics.The events of the last week ended Boro’s chances of winning a trophy this season. The 42-year-old former England captain, the first man to lift the FA Cup three times, does not know the meaning of the word “failure”. He has made something of a habit of picking up quality players at knock-down pricesThe Irishman’s first opportunity to sample the atmosphere at the Stadium of Light in a Sunderland shirt could come on Saturday, when his new side takes on Southampton in the Premiership.. BRYAN ROBSON has never shirked a challenge. The Swedish international Stefan Schwarz has been playing wide on the left after switching roles with Gavin McCann, and both men have made themselves fixtures in a side which is now lying fourth in the Premiership.But the signing of Kilbane seems to have confirmed the eventual departure of the Scottish international Allan Johnston.
