Tag: Spaniard

Fabregas Confident Of Grabbing Key Role For Chelsea

Cesc Fabregas, Chelsea, Leicester City Chelsea’s midfielder, Cesc Fabregas, is confident that he can play a key role for the club.

The Spaniard made the assertion after scoring an extra-time brace to help the Blues knock English Premier League (EPL) Champions, Leicester City out of the League Cup on Tuesday night.

Fabregas has been on the fringes of Coach Antonio Conte’s squad since the start of the season, having made just three league appearances from the bench.

The 29-year-old, who made his second start in all competitions this season, struck twice in the space of two minutes as Chelsea rallied from two goals down to beat 10-man Leicester City 4-2.

Meanwhile, Coach Claudio Ranieri has admitted that the big difference he noticed between the current season and the previous was that teams were more determined to beat the champions.

Ranieri was aware of the size of the task that faced Leicester in their bid to retain the trophy.

Since the formation of the EPL in 1992, only Manchester United and Chelsea have managed to do so.

Chelsea are fifth on the table with 10 points from five matches while Leicester are 11th with seven points from five games.

Djokovic To Face Nadal In China Open Final

djokovicWorld number 1, Novak Djokovic, has qualified for the final of the China Open, after claiming straight-sets win.

Djokovic extended his unbeaten winning run in the Chinese capital to 28 matches with a 6-2 6-3 win over David Ferrer of Spain.

Djokovic had been dominant for most of the season, winning three Grand Slam titles and dropping only 14 games in four matches in China.

Djokovic faces Rafeal Nadal in Sunday’s battle and it would be the 45th meeting of a long-term rivalry between the two. Although Nadal leads 23-21, the Serb has won six of the last seven.

Nadal qualified for the final after a 7-5 6-3 win over Italy’s Fabio Fognini.

Although Fognini had beaten Nadal three times in 2015, including in the US Open third round, the Spaniard held his nerve to set up a meeting with the Serbian.

Abramovich looking to cut losses on Torres

Signed from Liverpool to Chelsea for a whopping £50 million, Spaniard Fernando Torres has always been topical since his arrival at Stamford Bridge making as he has proved to be the player the Blues can rely on.

An arrow head in the Blues team,in terms of formation, Chelsea’s Russian owner is considering to cut his losses on the £50 million man, tagging  Torres with an ultimatum of one more month to prove pundits wrong and deliver like he used to while he was at Liverpool.

Meanwhile, Abramovich is not sleeping with his two eyes as Chelsea moved on another striker to likely replace Torres and  Brazilian striker, Taison was the choice of the Stamford Bridge club,  as reports indicate that he will sign a £10 million deal next week ahead of the opening of the January transfer window.

Taison was at Stamford Bridge to witness the 0-0 bore draw with Fulham.

The 24-year-old, a former Internacional team-mate of Chelsea’s big money summer signing Oscar, was tracked in the summer. His name has come to greater attention this season following his spectacular Marco Van Basten-esque volley for his club Metalist Kharkiv in the Europa League three weeks ago.

Benitez, on a short-term deal until the end of the season, still believes he can help Torres recapture the form he showed under him during his spell at Anfield.

When asked about Torres’ contribution in the back-to-back goalless draws over the past week, Benitez said: “We have had, maybe, five training sessions.

“It’s still too early. But for me we are watching things that are positive.”

Torres is currently on a run of 648 minutes without a Premier League goal, and has managed just one shot on target during Rafa’s first two games in charge.

Torres describes scoring ‘all-important’ goal

It was as if Fernando Torres read the minds of manager Roberto Di Matteo concerning the solution to finding a suitable replacement for the Spaniard upfront as he braced up  against the Gunners, stunning the London club with what will pass as his fifth goal of the season after 20 minutes into the local derby during the weekend.

Torres said It was important because it gave Chelsea the time to settle into the game and he was very happy for his goal and country man Juan Mata’s goal.

Gunners’ player Gervinho equalised for Arsenal shortly before half-time before another Spaniard Juan Mata scored the winning goal for the Blues in the 53rd minute.

Arsenal has been criticised though for not knowing how to deal with its set pieces while in the game against Chelsea as it became a constant threat to the backline of Arsenal with Koscielny taking the fault for Torres’ ‘all-important’ opener.

According to Fernando Torres “It was a one-against-one against Koscielny and he wasn’t facing the ball, so I could touch the ball before he could put the ball away.”

The 28-year-old was delighted to keep the Blues top of the Premier League with victory.

Victor Moses ready to play ‘Striker’ role for Chelsea

As Ivorian and former Chelsea Striker Didier Drogba decided to leave Stamford Bridge last season after their Champions League victory, the striking role fell upon the laps of the Spaniard Fernando Torres by default ad to assert that, no striker was signed up. But a little into the new season Torres has returned his days of underperformance with dismal performances against QPR, Juventus and Stoke City and he has been under heavy criticism of late.

Manager Di Matteo and Chelsea owner probably decided against signing a replacement for Didier Drogba but their hope of his replacement; Fernando Torres has probably not been playing to expectation as Di Mattio attention turned to Danny Sturridge who unfortunately is now struggling with armstring injury ,opening the chance of every possibility for new signing Victor Moses to fill up that role.

The Nigerian international in response said he will be willing and ready to play the striking role for Chelsea if Manager Roberto Di Matteo will let him as he is up to the task.

Victor Moses said position change on field comes naturally to him as he really does not mind what position he plays from as he is very versatile.

Former Chelsea winger Trevor Sinclair recently urged Moses to ease the scoring burden on the out-of-form Torres. The Spaniard, however, is expected to start the game against Arsenal at Ashburton Grove on 29 September.

Knee injury forces Rafa Nadal out of Olympic

Spain will pass as one of the countries to miss a major athlete on their national line-up as tennis superstar Rafa Nadal withdrew from the London Olympic Games team for Spain due to a persistent knee problem on Thursday.

Nadal who has won the French Open title a record seven times, crashed out in the second round at Wimbledon in a big upset against lowly ranked Czech Lukas Rosol.

Earlier this month, he pulled out of a charity match against Novak Djokovic at Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium saying he was suffering from tendinitis and needed to rest.

Four years ago in Beijing the Spaniard brushed aside other contenders to settle in for the biggest prize in his sport the gold medal but will be missed terribly in London as he won’t be able to defend his title and also he was to be the flag-bearer for Spain at the opening ceremony, an honour bestowed on him.

However, the Spanish tennis federation has announced that he is to be replaced by Feliciano Lopez in the singles and the doubles with Marcel Granollers but as for his replacement on who to bear the flag the Spanish Olympic Committee has not concluded.

Nadal had hoped to return to Wimbledon this month to defend his Olympic title and his withdrawal echoes his plight of 2009 when a similar knee problem meant he had to withdraw from the grass court grand slam, a year after winning it for the first time in an epic final against Roger Federer.

The Spaniard said sadly that he is not a good condition to go into competition and admitted that this is one of his saddest moments in the game.

Now rated number three in the world, he confessed that he wants to be unselfish about the whole issue because ahead of him is his country and national team so he is placing the Spanish sport into a better position in that he should allow some fitter in term of preparedness to take his place because Spain will stand a better chance with that.