Players To Stay Back
Martin Jol maintains Fulham must not let the possibility of Thierry Henry sitting on the Arsenal bench distract them from the job in hand at Craven Cottage this evening.
The former Gunners captain could make a dramatic return to the Barclays Premier League should clearance come through ratifying his loan move from Major League Soccer club New York Red Bulls.
However, no matter what squad Arsene Wenger is able to call upon, Cottagers boss Jol wants his men fully focused as they look to take the positives from Saturday's 1-1 draw at Norwich, where Fulham conceded an equaliser deep into stoppage time.
"For Arsenal fans it is fantastic. Henry is a legend," said Fulham manager Jol, who was in charge of the Gunners' arch rivals Tottenham from 2004 to 2007."(My team) played against him with Spurs and he was always making the difference as a player."
Jol added: "He could be sitting behind me and we will have to focus on the game.
"The last time we did well against Arsenal [drawing 1-1 at Emirates Stadium in November] and hopefully we can do the same."
Whatever side Wenger puts out, Fulham know they will have to produced a strong defensive display to get another positive result.
Centre-half Brede Hangeland - a one-time target for the Gunners - is confident the Cottagers can deliver.
"We seem to play quite well against Arsenal both at home and away," Hangeland said.
"Hopefully we can do the same again and we are looking to take three points because we're playing at the Cottage.
"There are signs that we will be even stronger over the second half of the season and we will be looking up the table now."
Fulham look set to again be without injured strike duo Bobby Zamora and Andrew Johnson against the Gunners, although winger Damien Duff could be in contention to start after returning to action with a 10-minute cameo at Carrow Road.
Portugal striker Orlando Sa netted an early goal as Fulham dominated the first half, before eventually sitting too deep cost them when Simeon Jackson headed in just seconds from the end of five minutes of stoppage time.
Midfielder Kerim Frei also tormented the Norwich defence for much of Saturday's game, the 18-year-old showing plenty of pace on the counter.
Jol has been impressed by the Austrian's contributions.
"Frei has got confidence and he is not like other young players - play well, play bad, play well - he is always the same," said the Fulham boss.
"That is great to watch and he has got real pace."Asked if that was good enough, Mancini replied: "No, not for a top team. In that situation, we attacked with eight players and the same players who attack need to come back and run quickly.
"I know football and for that reason in the last 15 minutes, I continued to call [central defenders] Vinny [Vincent Kompany] and [Joleon] Lescott to say, 'Stay there, stay there, don't leave the space', because that was dangerous.
"We continued to attack and sometimes we wanted to attack with 10 players. This is impossible.
"But that's it, it's finished. We have a game in 48 hours and we need to recover now."
Liverpool are next for City on Tuesday, when Mancini will expect a positive response from his players.
The omens were not promising for Sunderland today when boss Martin O'Neill was forced to do without goalkeeper Keiren Westwood, defenders Phil Bardsley and Titus Bramble and midfielder Kieran Richardson.
But O'Neill's side produced a performance of real grit to give themselves the opportunity to snatch a remarkable victory at the death.
Sunderland created arguably the game's best two chances before the dramatic finish, with Nicklas Bendtner with three minutes gone and Stephane Sessegnon 19 minutes after the break failing to make the most of them.
For City, Edin Dzeko was unable to take any of the opportunities which came his way, while it took a fine save from home goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, playing in a protective mask and for the first time since fracturing his nose and an eye-socket in October, to deny substitute Sergio Aguero from point-blank range.
Micah Richards, a 67th-minute replacement for Aleksandar Kolarov, hit the bar with a minute of normal time remaining, but it was Ji who finally snatched the win in the fourth minute of stoppage time when he rounded Joe Hart from Sessegnon's pass to spark wild celebrations at the Stadium of Light.
There was a suspicion of offside about the goal, although after seeing his side concede a controversial penalty on Boxing Day, O'Neill was delighted to have received the benefit of the doubt.
O'Neill said: "They tell me it was marginally offside - marginally, marginally - and we ended up winning the game.
"It's been an incredible weekend for teams and we are delighted with three points."
Mancini, who headed down the tunnel before the final whistle, admitted his side had been made to pay for missed chances.
He said: "It's frustrating because we can't lose a game like today's. In the second half, we had I don't know how many chances to score.
"But football is this. Sometimes you can't win. Sometimes you score three or four goals in a game, sometimes you can't score even if you have 10 chances to score.
"I am disappointed that we conceded a goal because a strong team cannot concede a goal like this."
O'Neill, who insisted he had no problem with Mancini's early departure from pitchside at the end of the match, was thrilled to have secured the points.
Asked if he was delighted, he said: "What do you think? Absolutely, yes. It was just a remarkable performance by the team.
"The roar for the goal was deafening, and I was delighted to hear the roar for the final whistle as well.Premier League stars are facing a tax probe into freebies including cars, flights and holidays, it has been claimed.
Reports say Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs investigators have interviewed financial officials at the country's top clubs in an attempt to find out the extent of their perks.
The Mail On Sunday says the crackdown will focus on how clubs allow for benefits given to their footballers. The teams' evidence will then be cross-checked against players' tax returns to see if anyone owes extra tax or National Insurance contributions.
It quoted a source as saying: "We are not talking about a few low-cost gifts. These people are multi-millionaires.
Martin Jol maintains Fulham must not let the possibility of Thierry Henry sitting on the Arsenal bench distract them from the job in hand at Craven Cottage this evening.
The former Gunners captain could make a dramatic return to the Barclays Premier League should clearance come through ratifying his loan move from Major League Soccer club New York Red Bulls.
However, no matter what squad Arsene Wenger is able to call upon, Cottagers boss Jol wants his men fully focused as they look to take the positives from Saturday's 1-1 draw at Norwich, where Fulham conceded an equaliser deep into stoppage time.
"For Arsenal fans it is fantastic. Henry is a legend," said Fulham manager Jol, who was in charge of the Gunners' arch rivals Tottenham from 2004 to 2007."(My team) played against him with Spurs and he was always making the difference as a player."
Jol added: "He could be sitting behind me and we will have to focus on the game.
"The last time we did well against Arsenal [drawing 1-1 at Emirates Stadium in November] and hopefully we can do the same."
Whatever side Wenger puts out, Fulham know they will have to produced a strong defensive display to get another positive result.
Centre-half Brede Hangeland - a one-time target for the Gunners - is confident the Cottagers can deliver.
"We seem to play quite well against Arsenal both at home and away," Hangeland said.
"Hopefully we can do the same again and we are looking to take three points because we're playing at the Cottage.
"There are signs that we will be even stronger over the second half of the season and we will be looking up the table now."
Fulham look set to again be without injured strike duo Bobby Zamora and Andrew Johnson against the Gunners, although winger Damien Duff could be in contention to start after returning to action with a 10-minute cameo at Carrow Road.
Portugal striker Orlando Sa netted an early goal as Fulham dominated the first half, before eventually sitting too deep cost them when Simeon Jackson headed in just seconds from the end of five minutes of stoppage time.
Midfielder Kerim Frei also tormented the Norwich defence for much of Saturday's game, the 18-year-old showing plenty of pace on the counter.
Jol has been impressed by the Austrian's contributions.
"Frei has got confidence and he is not like other young players - play well, play bad, play well - he is always the same," said the Fulham boss.
"That is great to watch and he has got real pace."Asked if that was good enough, Mancini replied: "No, not for a top team. In that situation, we attacked with eight players and the same players who attack need to come back and run quickly.
"I know football and for that reason in the last 15 minutes, I continued to call [central defenders] Vinny [Vincent Kompany] and [Joleon] Lescott to say, 'Stay there, stay there, don't leave the space', because that was dangerous.
"We continued to attack and sometimes we wanted to attack with 10 players. This is impossible.
"But that's it, it's finished. We have a game in 48 hours and we need to recover now."
Liverpool are next for City on Tuesday, when Mancini will expect a positive response from his players.
The omens were not promising for Sunderland today when boss Martin O'Neill was forced to do without goalkeeper Keiren Westwood, defenders Phil Bardsley and Titus Bramble and midfielder Kieran Richardson.
But O'Neill's side produced a performance of real grit to give themselves the opportunity to snatch a remarkable victory at the death.
Sunderland created arguably the game's best two chances before the dramatic finish, with Nicklas Bendtner with three minutes gone and Stephane Sessegnon 19 minutes after the break failing to make the most of them.
For City, Edin Dzeko was unable to take any of the opportunities which came his way, while it took a fine save from home goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, playing in a protective mask and for the first time since fracturing his nose and an eye-socket in October, to deny substitute Sergio Aguero from point-blank range.
Micah Richards, a 67th-minute replacement for Aleksandar Kolarov, hit the bar with a minute of normal time remaining, but it was Ji who finally snatched the win in the fourth minute of stoppage time when he rounded Joe Hart from Sessegnon's pass to spark wild celebrations at the Stadium of Light.
There was a suspicion of offside about the goal, although after seeing his side concede a controversial penalty on Boxing Day, O'Neill was delighted to have received the benefit of the doubt.
O'Neill said: "They tell me it was marginally offside - marginally, marginally - and we ended up winning the game.
"It's been an incredible weekend for teams and we are delighted with three points."
Mancini, who headed down the tunnel before the final whistle, admitted his side had been made to pay for missed chances.
He said: "It's frustrating because we can't lose a game like today's. In the second half, we had I don't know how many chances to score.
"But football is this. Sometimes you can't win. Sometimes you score three or four goals in a game, sometimes you can't score even if you have 10 chances to score.
"I am disappointed that we conceded a goal because a strong team cannot concede a goal like this."
O'Neill, who insisted he had no problem with Mancini's early departure from pitchside at the end of the match, was thrilled to have secured the points.
Asked if he was delighted, he said: "What do you think? Absolutely, yes. It was just a remarkable performance by the team.
"The roar for the goal was deafening, and I was delighted to hear the roar for the final whistle as well.Premier League stars are facing a tax probe into freebies including cars, flights and holidays, it has been claimed.
Reports say Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs investigators have interviewed financial officials at the country's top clubs in an attempt to find out the extent of their perks.
The Mail On Sunday says the crackdown will focus on how clubs allow for benefits given to their footballers. The teams' evidence will then be cross-checked against players' tax returns to see if anyone owes extra tax or National Insurance contributions.
It quoted a source as saying: "We are not talking about a few low-cost gifts. These people are multi-millionaires.
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