Manchester United claimed the Premiership title for the third Consecutive year with a game to spare by holding Arsenal to a scoreless draw at Old Trafford. Of course Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez refused to praise Alex Ferguson’s team because he didn’t agree with certain things that happened during the season. I’m no fan of Sir Alex but what he has achieved given the disastrous start of the season is remarkable. Benitez’ Liverpool only have themselves to blame drawing too many games they really should have won. The Reds won their game against West Brom 0 – 2 at the Hawthorns sending the West Midlanders back to the Championship after just one season in the Premiership. I believe that if Liverpool are to win the Premiership; Benitez needs to keep his mouth shut about other managers and knuckle down to win games. Since winning the 2006 FA cup Liverpool have failed to capture any silverware and I put the blame squarely at the door of Benitez’ big mouth. All he manages to do is fire up the opposition; I appreciate his passion for the club but he needs to keep his own temper in check; set an example to his players!
The English cricket team won the second and final test to take the series win 2 – 0. England won the toss and elected to bat knocking 569 – 6 wickets declared. Alistair Cook top scored with 160 backed up by Ravi Bopara’s 108; the Essex player’s third consecutive century. Pietersen (49), Collingwood (60) and Prior (63) also made useful contributions. Despite Ramnaresh Sarwan’s century the West Indies were bowled out for 310 in their first innings failing to make enough runs to avoid the follow-on. Of course the Englishman made the Windies follow-on and bowled out the tourists for 176 falling 83 runs short of England’s first innings total giving the home team victory by an innings and 83 runs. A comprehensive series win for England but to be honest the West Indies were poor; the Aussie won’t be such a pushover. But hopefully this series win will give the Englishmen confidence going into the Ashes tour later in the summer. It’ll be nice to pay the Aussies back for humiliating England in the last Ashes tour down under!
After Friday’s meeting between the FIA and the teams threatening to quit F1; it’s status quo. The renegade teams and FIA could not reach agreement on the cap but what came out of the meeting was the announcement that a two tier system isn’t on the cards. Apparently the whole two tier system came about because European law doesn’t allow for a governing body to dictate how much a team can spend on development. But it does allow for the governing body to give teams more advantages for staying under the cap level! I am impressed with Max Mosley so far; I fully expected Mosley and the FIA to cave in with the prospect of being without five top teams next season. The teams have until the 29th of May to decide whether they want to compete in the 2010 championship. Mosley went onto say that there are plenty of teams queuing up to enter F1 if the existing teams fail to sign by the deadline. And if the big teams threatening to leave F1 want to enter after that date; they’ll have to buy up a smaller team entered into the championship to be on the 2010 F1 grid should there not be any remaining places left on the grid! Renault team Principle Flavio Briatore has demanded that FOTA (Formula One Teams Association) make the rules not the FIA. FOTA couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, they can’t agree on anything, no team is going to agree to rule changes unless in suits their personal needs. I can’t wait for the May 29th deadline to see how many teams don’t put pen to paper. I believe all will sign except maybe BMW who I believe are looking for a face saving way to leave the sport after a disappointing start to the season and mounting pressure from Bavaria.