Matches have gone ahead when the pitch has not been 100 per cent fit and in my opinion the pitch was 95

“Matches have gone ahead when the pitch has not been 100 per cent fit and in my opinion the pitch was 95 per cent playable.”If we had more time, we may well have got it 100 per cent fit but we were up against it because we had to make a decision whether to open the turnstiles. In a desperate attempt to jump the queue they would have asked to speak to someone in authority, dropped a few names and generally flexed their muscles.But Harmison, 26, is not that type of character. He does not expect or ask for favours whether it be on or off a cricket field and he was just looking forward to spending some time with his wife and three children.”My family have been in South Africa for 15 days and I have not seen much of them,” said Harmison. Since Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United all have very straightforward home games over the weekend and there are no all-Premiership ties, Burnley may well be lucky.Their chief executive, Dave Edmundson, was bitterly critical of the decision of the referee, Mark Clattenburg, to call off the match half an hour before the scheduled kick-off “We are extremely disappointed,” he said. The only chance they have of recouping that money is to hope that when the match is replayed, probably on Tuesday 18 January, there is no FA Cup replay that is more attractive than Burnley v Liverpool. It is money the club desperately requires.Some £150,000 of that is the fee Sky would have paid for transmission while the rest is lost corporate business. But while the Championship match with Leicester, called off after a quarter of an hour, merely inconvenienced Burnley, the postponement of last night’s FA Cup tie with Liverpool could cost more than £200,000.

The one thing Steve Cotterill dislikes about managing Burnley is training in ceaseless rain and last night he and his club were counting the cost of the Lancashire weather. The only reason we would sell is if we were offered silly money but I certainly haven’t had a phone call about Nicolas.”City, who have debts of around £62m, still have £5m of Anelka’s transfer fee to pay to Paris St-Germain.Keegan added: “He has been our key player and our top goalscorer for the last two seasons so people should not think that they can pinch him out of here or steal him away without paying top value.”The point is that we would have to replace him, otherwise he stays and gets on with seeing out his contract which is another two and a half years.”Keegan said that Anelka, who still has a back problem, will not play against Oldham in the FA Cup third round today.. Their plans rely on whether they can sign Fernando Morientes from Real Madrid.Keegan said: “I don’t think there is any doubt that if any one put in a really big bid for Nicolas we would sell him and use the money to strengthen the team. Kevin Keegan announced yesterday that Nicolas Anelka can leave Manchester City for £8m after the club’s patience was finally stretched past its limits on Tuesday when the striker refused to take a fitness test before the Arsenal match.
The City manager admitted that he was “disappointed” with Anelka’s reaction before the match and said that if a club was to come in with a “big bid” for the 25-year-old then he would be prepared to let the player he signed for £13m in 2002 leave.The valuation placed on Anelka is likely to deter most Premiership sides, although Liverpool, who took the striker on loan before he joined City, look like the key contenders. If we had had some freshness we would have made changes but we couldn’t do it.”. The hamstring injury to Ryan Giggs is not as bad as first thought and he should be back in two weeks’ time.”What happened on Tuesday was not surprising really because we have played the same players in four games in 10 days,” Ferguson said.”You could see that with Scholesy and when Ryan came off that just compounded it.

The people at that end knew but no one on the touchline knew.” The United manager dismissed claims that Carroll should have owned to conceding a goal as “nonsense”.With Wes Brown returning from injury to play today, Ferguson is expected to rest Paul Scholes, Roy Keane and possibly Rio Ferdinand. He was thinking maybe it was a goal, but he couldn’t give it because he wasn’t 100 per cent sure. He had a little doubt about whether it was in and I don’t blame him.”I never saw it was over the line I swear I never realised until I saw it on the video I saw the Tottenham players react, obviously. He dived back and did his genuine best to get the ball back away from the goal He reacted as any goalkeeper would That’s why referees are on the pitch, to make decisions. He couldn’t do it on that one so the weight of argument is very strong now for technology.”The ball was clearly over the line, I’m not going to dispute that, but the criticism of the referee and the linesman was unfair I don’t think they had any chance.