Chelsea Football Update: Football

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Sunday, April 26, 2015

Everton v Manchester United: Premier League – live!

Six Chelsea players named in PFA’s Premier League team of the year

• Hazard, Costa, Terry, Cahill, Ivanovic and Matic all included
• Harry Kane and Southampton’s Ryan Bertrand also feature
• PFA will announce Football League and WSL teams later on Sunday

Six Chelsea players feature in the PFA’s Premier League team of the year, which was announced on Twitter ahead of Sunday’s PFA Awards ceremony.

Player of the Year nominees Diego Costa and Eden Hazard are joined in the team by defenders John Terry, Gary Cahill, Branislav Ivanovic and midfielder Nemanja Matic, while Harry Kane features after scoring 31 goals for Tottenham this season.

via Football | The Guardian http://ift.tt/1Gv08fs

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Van Gaal’s gravitas shines light on Manchester United’s Moyes gap year

With Van Gaal at the helm United are an attractive proposition again whereas, when Moyes claimed leading players were interested in joining, it sounded more as if he was reassuring himself that the brand still meant something
• Giggs is Van Gaal’s choice to be next United manager
• De Gea is the boss, not me, over signing new deal, says Van Gaal

The grim reaper will not be necessary at Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon. Louis van Gaal visits the venue where David Moyes was poignantly reminded of his disposability in his final game as Manchester United manager with his new-look team higher in the table than Everton, on course for a Champions League place and with Roberto Martínez predicting the trophies will start to roll into Old Trafford next season.

After an unpromising start Van Gaal has managed what Moyes could not and produced a side that plays as a United team should. The arguments will rage about whether some sort of sacrificial interim was necessary to act as a buffer after the Sir Alex Ferguson years or whether United should have gone straight down the supercoach route and made an approach to José Mourinho, but the issue has been resolved now. Van Gaal looks like delivering on the target he was set at the start of the season, a top-four finish, even if he sets himself slightly higher standards than that. “The club set Europe as the goal for me to achieve but that is not my only aim,” Van Gaal said. “I am here to win championships, not to finish third or fourth. Maybe next year.”