McDermott Confident Royals Will Return Despite Defeat

Reading manager Brian McDermott has suggested that his team will be back, after suffering the heart-break of losing the Championship Play-Off final to Swansea City 4-2 this afternoon.

McDermott is confident that this defeat will make the team stronger in order to spur them on for promotion next season, manager McDermott was naturally devastated by the result, but believes his side can come back bigger and better next season.

"We'll be stronger for this. That's the most important thing," said McDermott.

"It hurts, but you have to sometimes live with the pain and then move on.

"It's very tough. It's very painful. But what we can do now is just look ahead and build for next season again.

"I'm just really disappointed for our fans and I wish we could've got the right result for them."

Liverpool confirm Gerrard's injury

Gerrard out for four weeks

Liverpool have been dealt with a injury blow that will rule Steven Gerrard out for up to four weeks, the midfielder suffered a hamstring injury last night while playing for England in the 2-1 defeat against France at Wembley. The skipper will have a scan later today, but after an initial assessment by Liverpool's medical team at Melwood training ground. It is thought that their captain will be sidelined for a month.

England and Liverpool had an agreement that Gerrard should only play for an hour, but after Barry was forced to come off and the England manager said he no choice but keep Gerrard on due to lack of senior players on the pitch and with Gerrard playing on longer than expected, he was forced to withdraw when he pulled his hamstring.

Dr Peter Brukner speaking on Liverpool TV said, "Steven injured his hamstring last night. He's just been in for an early assessment here and it certainly looks like a significant hamstring injury.

"He's just heading off for a scan as we speak and we should have the results of that tonight.

"He's going to be out for a little while, I'm afraid. I'd imagine it could be three to four weeks.
"
Fans were disappointed to see Gerrard play 85 minutes of the friendly match after an agreement with the FA was broke, but Dr Brukner remains philosophical about the situation.

"If you put your hand up to play for your country, you've got to accept how long they want you to play for," he said.

"There were obviously circumstances last night which came together to result in Steven playing for a bit longer than we'd hoped, which is disappointing but there's nothing we can do about that now.

"We'll move on and work as hard as we can to get him back playing for Liverpool as soon as possible."

Earlier in the day head of fitness and conditioning Darren Burgess posted a tweet slamming England's behaviour as 'disgraceful'

He also went on to add, "Unbelievable from all associated with England and English FA with regard to Steven Gerrard's injury. Completely ignored agreement and past history.
 
"Completely amateurish and now we pay for their incompetence. Absolutely disgraceful."

When speaking on the agreement with the FA & Liverpool, England manager Fabio Capello added, "We spoke with Steve and he said he would play one hour, but after Barry's injury we had some problems,"

"That was the reason he stayed on the pitch. If it's possible, the players will play the time we agreed with the club. admitted Capello.

"But Barry was really injured so we needed someone senior on the pitch because it was a really young team. He said he was good.

"They [Liverpool] asked that he can play one hour if it's possible. They can't decide how long a player plays with the national team.

"If it's possible, he'd have played an hour. I understand why they're upset and I'm also upset.

"The problem is that, when you play this game on Wednesday after a lot of Premier League, Europa League or Champions League games, it's possible there might be an injury for a player. The Premier League, every time, is a tough league for the players."

England Lose Against France

Benzema scored the first goal

England have lost against France 2-1 in a friendly match that was played at Wembley tonight. The Three Lions failed to get off to the best of starts with France dominating most of the possession in the first half. They knocked the ball around with typicla French panache in comparison to their English opponants.

In terms of performance, it has to be admitted that England were woeful.  Unable to retain possession and make any meaningful passes, they gave the ball away on numerous occasions.

England went behind early when Karim Benzema played a nice one-two with Sami Nasri around the seemingly hapless Rio Ferdinand. Benzema lashed in a low left footed shot in the area which went underneath England goalkeeper Ben Foster.

Fabio Capello gave his first international caps to Andy Carroll, Kieron Gibbs and Jordan Henderson. Two of them will probably find cause to regret this. Andy Carroll gave a good performance, winning all the balls in the air that came his way, and holding up the play and bringing in midfield players.

The other pair had an undistinguished time representing their country.

England were unable to create any clear cut chances in first half and were relying on Carroll winning battles in the air, hoofing long balls up field for the Newcastle man to challenge.

In the second half Capello made three changes, taking off Kieron Gibbs, Rio Ferdinand and Theo Walcott for Stephen Warnock, Micah Richards and Ashley Young.  Thein hope was that this would create more chances for England, but this tactic failed miserably as England fell further behind.

Bacra Sagna was allowed space and time to cross on the right hand side for Mathieu Valbuena to volley home making the score 2-0. Moments later Andy Carroll was substituted for Jay Bothroyd who was making his Three Lions debut.

England had more chances in the second half but they failed to capitalize on these opportunities.

Steven Gerrard burst through in the the French area a couple of times, only to see his efforts whisk wide of the goal.

A dangerous move - it was one of those runs from Gerrard that forced the Liverpool player to withdraw due to a hamstring problem.

Peter Crouch was then brought on for the injured Gerrard and made an instant impact getting on the end of a back post cross to volley home, making the score 2-1.  Despite this, England were unable to find an equaliser towards the end of game.

A time to gather thought for the squad, perhaps.

Cech keen on Wembley Champions League Final

Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech has admitted that having the Champions League final at Wembley is providing extra motivation for the team to be there, Cech and Chelsea swept aside Spartak Moscow at Stamford Bridge to guaranteed a place in the next phase by beating the Russian side 4-1, maintaining there 100% percent record in Group F.

"We have a high-quality squad and enough experience to win the Champions League, but that is not the most decisive thing in football," Cech told CTK.

"Along the way you need a lit bit of luck here and there, and we lacked that in previous seasons.

"The team has been retaining a high standard of performing and quality in the last six or seven years.
"I believe that if we go towards it, Lady Luck might move to our side and we might finally break the curse of not getting past the semi-finals.

"Moreover, this season's final is played at Wembley and that is an extra motivation. We know what it is like to win games at Wembley as we have excellent memories of this stadium."

Chelsea's previous attempts saw them fall at the semi final stage, but the West London side want to go all the way and win it this time around, Chelsea have had a superb start to their Premier League and Champions League campaign with goalkeeper Petr Cech happy with the defending this season, on conceding five goals in thirteen appearances in the Premier League this season.

"At the start of the previous season, we had a spell during which we defended set-pieces terribly.
"Even though we had been preparing for that carefully before the game, the ball always somehow found its way into the back of the net.

"There was some sort of hysteria made from nothing about it then. It turned out to be slightly premature because we ended the season with the biggest amount of clean sheets, I was named the best goalkeeper in the league and we won the Double.

"I am glad to have been doing well and we will see how far we get."

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