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/ 22 October 2004

Arsenal’s midfield revolution

Forget Wednesday’s 2-2 draw at Panathinaikos. Something far more important happened late in Arsenal’s stylish 3-1 win over Aston Villa at Highbury last Saturday. It’s the kind of thing that will send a shudder of fear through Manchester United. Neal Collins also takes a look at the coming week’s soccer matches.

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/ 22 October 2004

Liverpool back for Morientes

Liverpool are exploring the possibilities of reviving a deal for Fernando Morientes, Real Madrid’s unsettled Spanish striker. Rafael Benitez had wanted to bring the Spanish international striker to Anfield as part of the £8-million deal that saw Michael Owen move to the Bernabeu, but instead got the now-injured Antonio Nunez.

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/ 22 October 2004

Zim opposition raises fears of vote rigging

Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Friday it feared plans were already under way to rig elections set for March next year. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who was last week cleared of his first count of treason, alleged that Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF planned to shift constituency boundaries in favour of its rural strongholds.

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/ 22 October 2004

Bulldogs ‘can raise game by 20%’

Despite a two-and-a-half-hour delay, the Border Bulldogs arrived in high spirits in Wellington for their first division Currie Cup final against the Boland Cavaliers on Friday afternoon. The Bulldogs team had boarded at 11am only to be told there was a problem with starting the aeroplane.

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/ 22 October 2004

Red peril

Gary Neville has warned Arsenal that their 49-match unbeaten run in the Premiership will count for nothing when they run out at Old Trafford on Sunday. The Manchester United full-back has been involved in enough encounters between the two biggest forces in English football over the last decade to know that form tends to have little impact on the outcome of the titanic tussles between them.

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/ 22 October 2004

Partnership in party mode

The great and the good of Africa gather in Sandton on Friday to blow out the three birthday candles on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) cake.
Behind the fanfare, the steering committee of the continental rescue plan has to ask what there is to celebrate. But before doing that, it will have to consider exactly who’s at the party.

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/ 22 October 2004

Coke doesn’t make you a drugs cheat

It is hard to feel sympathy for a footballer on £60 000 a week whose all-round fondness for fast living and aversion to training has brought his career to the brink of disaster. In one respect, however, Adrian Mutu, the Chelsea striker who admitted this week that he tested positive for cocaine, can consider himself unfortunate.

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/ 22 October 2004

Mutu’s no mutt off the field

It would be tempting to lump Adrian Mutu, the latest footballer to find himself in hot water, with the rest of the got-rich-too-quick brigade. Tempting, but completely wrong. But though he grew up in a land where money was a particularly scarce resource, Mutu’s case deserves further, rigorous examination.

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/ 22 October 2004

Racism rules in Russia

So you’re young, black and gifted with a ball at your feet. European glory beckons. Where should you head to make your fortune? Not racist Russia, apparently. Nor any of the former Eastern Bloc states. Dynamo Moscow’s Senegalese defender, Pascal Mendi, has claimed: ”In Russia they have two major problems. Racism and the language.”