Sport nationInjury deprives Sergio Ramos of Champions League trip to Arsenal
Injury deprives Sergio Ramos of Champions League trip to Arsenal
Sergio Ramos admits the appeal of Champions League football only added to the lure of an emotional return to Sevilla as he hopes the LaLiga side can win at Arsenal in his absence on Wednesday.
The 37-year-old won the competition four times during a trophy-laden spell at Real Madrid but is now back at his boyhood club following a stint with Paris St Germain.
The former Spain centre-back has been ruled out with a calf injury and has not travelled for Sevilla’s crucial Group B clash away to Arsenal.
Defeat for the reigning Europa League champions would leave their chances of progression into the Champions League knockout stages on a knife-edge with two games remaining.
Ramos will no doubt be desperate to feature in those fixtures and help keep Sevilla’s ambitions alive after making the “passionate” decision to return after an 18-year absence.
“I had received offers of going abroad, to Saudi Arabia, for instance – but this was a debt I had to my club, to Sevilla, the first team where I triumphed,” he said.
“This is also a personal debt towards my family, my parents, my grandparents – it’s very emotional, very passionate to me. This was a very personal decision, a decision made with the heart.
“The Champions League is something that everybody knows what it means, especially personally to me, when making a decision the Champions League is an important competition.
“Sevilla were playing in the Champions League and that was a plus in making such a decision.
“Arsenal are a consolidated team with young players with a well-defined style of play. They know how they play and we know it will be a very, very difficult game.
“Winning? Well, we know that Arsenal are an amazing team. But of course, the team will go there with the intention of taking the win, the three points home.
“We know how difficult it can be but we will try to play a serious game, very concentrated to try to make sure that they don’t have a lot of opportunities and we take advantage of the ones we have.”
Asked about his fitness ahead of Saturday’s 1-1 LaLiga draw against Celta Vigo, a match the World Cup winner was not involved in, Ramos replied: “Let’s take it one day at a time. It is true it’s not a big injury, it is a minor injury.”
Arsenal sit top of the group after a 2-1 win in Spain a fortnight ago but Mikel Arteta’s side have lost two of their three domestic games since.
Speaking at the Emirates Stadium on the eve of the clash, Sevilla head coach Diego Alonso praised Arsenal as one of the elite clubs in Europe.
“The game at a strategic and football level is complex,” he said.
“We are facing the fourth or fifth best team in Europe, they showed it last season, same in this one. It puts us in difficulties, but it also put us in difficulties two weeks ago. We competed well, with an unfair result for me because we did more for the game.”
:: Watch LALIGA on Viaplay, available in the UK on Sky, Virgin TV, Amazon Prime Video and via streaming.
as cleared the air with Football Association of Wales chief Noel Mooney after their public spat last month.
Mooney put Page’s future in the spotlight four days before the Euro 2024 qualifier against Croatia by saying the manager’s position would be reviewed if Wales did not qualify for Euro 2024 automatically.
Subsequent media reports suggested Mooney had wanted fellow Irishman Roy Keane, the former Sunderland and Ipswich manager and TV pundit, to replace Page following June defeats to Armenia and Turkey.
Page is just over 12 months into a four-year contract and promised to “ignore the noise” during the build-up to a game that Wales eventually won 2-1 to move into the second automatic qualifying place in Group D.
Captain Ben Davies described Mooney’s comments as “not helpful”, and Page said the issue has since been addressed at a meeting between himself, the chief executive and FAW president Steve Williams.
“It was a conversation all three of us needed,” Page said when announcing his squad on Wednesday for this month’s final Euro 2024 qualifiers against Armenia and Turkey.
“I’m not going to go into details of what was said. It needed to be done and only positives will come from it.
“I’m due to meet him (Mooney) after the press conference and we’ll have a coffee and a chat.
“Things were said and that was it. We all move forward in the same direction. Full focus is now on the football.
“It was frustrating, unnecessary. But I don’t want to spend any more time thinking about it. We’re all on the same page.
“We all know what we’ve got to do. It would be disrespectful from me now to the players to keep going on about it.”
Tottenham forward Brennan Johnson returns to a 23-man squad after missing the win over Croatia with a hamstring injury.
Page maintains stand-in skipper Davies will be fit for both qualifiers, despite the defender missing Spurs’ 4-1 Premier League defeat against Chelsea on Monday and also being in danger of sitting out his club’s weekend game at Wolves.
Sunderland defender Niall Huggins has won his first senior call-up and Portsmouth midfielder Joe Morrell returns after a two-match suspension.
But Aaron Ramsey is again ruled out with the knee injury he sustained in September, and Page says the Cardiff midfielder has suffered a “setback” in his recovery.
He said: “It’s disappointing, I found out on Friday last week. As we all know Aaron was pushing and pushing to be part of this camp.
“Unfortunately it’s come a little too soon for him. He’s had a setback. He got up to about 90 per cent. If you’d seen him on the grass, straight lines, everything was fine.
“But there was something stopping him from going to that last step. So it’s not great for us, but it gives others an opportunity.
“He’ll be a part of it (the squad). I had that conversation with him last camp. He knew he wasn’t going to play any minutes in regards to the changing room, but to have Aaron around the lads is definitely beneficial.”
Wales can avoid the play-offs in March by beating Armenia in Yerevan on November 18 and Turkey in Cardiff three days later.
Dropped points in either game will leave them relying on other results to join already-qualified Turkey at next summer’s European Championship in Germany.
“June was a bump in the road,” Page said of damaging defeats to Armenia and Turkey in the space of four days.
“We didn’t like it. We didn’t appreciate it. We didn’t like what we saw, but we put it right in September (by beating Latvia) – and some.
“We built on that in October and capped it off with arguably one of the best performances that I’ve seen.
“We have to build on that. It will count for nothing if we don’t follow it up.”
Aberdeen left disappointed and frustrated by cup final ticket allocationAberdeen left disappointed and frustrated by cup final ticket allocation
Aberdeen have expressed their “extreme disappointment and frustration” after their “robust” case for a 50-50 split of tickets for the Viaplay Cup final was rejected.
The Scottish Professional Football League has announced that Rangers will receive about 25,000 tickets – roughly half the capacity of Hampden – but the Dons will only be allocated up to 19,500 seats for the December 17 showpiece.
An Aberdeen statement read: “The club robustly put its case to the SPFL to treat both teams fairly with an even share of tickets, given Hampden is a neutral venue and, as such, presented an option that would split the allocation for the match evenly between both competing finalists.
“Much to our extreme disappointment and frustration, this proposal was rejected by the SPFL, who cited operational challenges and attendances at previous semi-finals/finals as the principal reasons for their determination.”
Aberdeen had proposed that they hold back five sections of the North Stand and hand back tickets to pass on to Rangers by a certain date if the demand among their fans was not evident.
An SPFL spokesperson said: “Deciding ticketing allocations for cup finals is always a challenging task, as more fans invariably want to attend than the stadium can accommodate.
“We take a range of factors into consideration, including the number of tickets each club sells in the semi-finals, as well as their historic ticket sales in any previous League Cup finals and semi-finals.
“In addition, the design of the stadium and its ability to split sections is a major factor which influences our decisions, together with input from safety and security authorities to ensure fan safety and appropriate segregation.”
The league added that the split was broadly the same configuration as Aberdeen’s previous League Cup final appearance against Celtic five years ago.
There were 28,295 fans at the semi-final between Aberdeen and Hibernian.
The Dons were confident of selling a 50 per cent allocation given they took 43,000 supporters to Celtic Park when they last won the League Cup in 2014 by beating Inverness in the final.
Scotland call-up Josh Doig, Anthony Ralston and Robby McCrorie for qualifiersScotland call-up Josh Doig, Anthony Ralston and Robby McCrorie for qualifiers
Josh Doig, Anthony Ralston and Robby McCrorie have been included in the Scotland squad for the upcoming Euro 2024 qualifiers away to Georgia and at home to Norway as a batch of key players struggle for fitness.
Goalkeeper Angus Gunn, captain Andrew Robertson, plus fellow defenders Kieran Tierney and Aaron Hickey – all of whom have been regular starters when fit – miss out through injury.
Verona left-back Doig earned a maiden call-up from Steve Clarke a year past September but is yet to win his first cap.
However, he will have the opportunity to stake a claim for a place at left-wing-back in the absence of Robertson and Tierney.
Celtic right-back Ralston – with six caps to his name – will vie with Nathan Patterson for the right-wing-back slot in place of Hickey.
Uncapped Rangers goalkeeper McCrorie has been added after Gunn failed to recover from the injury he sustained while playing for Norwich against Leeds last month.
Motherwell’s Liam Kelly and Hearts’ Zander Clark – both of whom made their international bows in the friendly defeat by France last month – will hope to be given the chance to make their competitive debuts in place of Gunn over the next two games.
Along with Gunn, Robertson, Tierney and Hickey, Millwall forward Kevin Nisbet and Rangers defender John Souttar, who have also had fitness issues recently, are the other notable absentees from the squad.
The Scots are already assured of qualification for the finals in Germany next summer but could still finish top of Group A if they achieve better results in their closing two matches than Spain manage in their concluding fixtures against Cyprus and Georgia.
Injury deprives Sergio Ramos of Champions League trip to Arsenal
Injury deprives Sergio Ramos of Champions League trip to Arsenal
Sergio Ramos admits the appeal of Champions League football only added to the lure of an emotional return to Sevilla as he hopes the LaLiga side can win at Arsenal in his absence on Wednesday.
The 37-year-old won the competition four times during a trophy-laden spell at Real Madrid but is now back at his boyhood club following a stint with Paris St Germain.
The former Spain centre-back has been ruled out with a calf injury and has not travelled for Sevilla’s crucial Group B clash away to Arsenal.
Defeat for the reigning Europa League champions would leave their chances of progression into the Champions League knockout stages on a knife-edge with two games remaining.
Ramos will no doubt be desperate to feature in those fixtures and help keep Sevilla’s ambitions alive after making the “passionate” decision to return after an 18-year absence.
“I had received offers of going abroad, to Saudi Arabia, for instance – but this was a debt I had to my club, to Sevilla, the first team where I triumphed,” he said.
“This is also a personal debt towards my family, my parents, my grandparents – it’s very emotional, very passionate to me. This was a very personal decision, a decision made with the heart.
“The Champions League is something that everybody knows what it means, especially personally to me, when making a decision the Champions League is an important competition.
“Sevilla were playing in the Champions League and that was a plus in making such a decision.
“Arsenal are a consolidated team with young players with a well-defined style of play. They know how they play and we know it will be a very, very difficult game.
“Winning? Well, we know that Arsenal are an amazing team. But of course, the team will go there with the intention of taking the win, the three points home.
“We know how difficult it can be but we will try to play a serious game, very concentrated to try to make sure that they don’t have a lot of opportunities and we take advantage of the ones we have.”
Asked about his fitness ahead of Saturday’s 1-1 LaLiga draw against Celta Vigo, a match the World Cup winner was not involved in, Ramos replied: “Let’s take it one day at a time. It is true it’s not a big injury, it is a minor injury.”
Arsenal sit top of the group after a 2-1 win in Spain a fortnight ago but Mikel Arteta’s side have lost two of their three domestic games since.
Speaking at the Emirates Stadium on the eve of the clash, Sevilla head coach Diego Alonso praised Arsenal as one of the elite clubs in Europe.
“The game at a strategic and football level is complex,” he said.
“We are facing the fourth or fifth best team in Europe, they showed it last season, same in this one. It puts us in difficulties, but it also put us in difficulties two weeks ago. We competed well, with an unfair result for me because we did more for the game.”
:: Watch LALIGA on Viaplay, available in the UK on Sky, Virgin TV, Amazon Prime Video and via streaming.
as cleared the air with Football Association of Wales chief Noel Mooney after their public spat last month.
Mooney put Page’s future in the spotlight four days before the Euro 2024 qualifier against Croatia by saying the manager’s position would be reviewed if Wales did not qualify for Euro 2024 automatically.
Subsequent media reports suggested Mooney had wanted fellow Irishman Roy Keane, the former Sunderland and Ipswich manager and TV pundit, to replace Page following June defeats to Armenia and Turkey.
Page is just over 12 months into a four-year contract and promised to “ignore the noise” during the build-up to a game that Wales eventually won 2-1 to move into the second automatic qualifying place in Group D.
Captain Ben Davies described Mooney’s comments as “not helpful”, and Page said the issue has since been addressed at a meeting between himself, the chief executive and FAW president Steve Williams.
“It was a conversation all three of us needed,” Page said when announcing his squad on Wednesday for this month’s final Euro 2024 qualifiers against Armenia and Turkey.
“I’m not going to go into details of what was said. It needed to be done and only positives will come from it.
“I’m due to meet him (Mooney) after the press conference and we’ll have a coffee and a chat.
“Things were said and that was it. We all move forward in the same direction. Full focus is now on the football.
“It was frustrating, unnecessary. But I don’t want to spend any more time thinking about it. We’re all on the same page.
“We all know what we’ve got to do. It would be disrespectful from me now to the players to keep going on about it.”
Tottenham forward Brennan Johnson returns to a 23-man squad after missing the win over Croatia with a hamstring injury.
Page maintains stand-in skipper Davies will be fit for both qualifiers, despite the defender missing Spurs’ 4-1 Premier League defeat against Chelsea on Monday and also being in danger of sitting out his club’s weekend game at Wolves.
Sunderland defender Niall Huggins has won his first senior call-up and Portsmouth midfielder Joe Morrell returns after a two-match suspension.
But Aaron Ramsey is again ruled out with the knee injury he sustained in September, and Page says the Cardiff midfielder has suffered a “setback” in his recovery.
He said: “It’s disappointing, I found out on Friday last week. As we all know Aaron was pushing and pushing to be part of this camp.
“Unfortunately it’s come a little too soon for him. He’s had a setback. He got up to about 90 per cent. If you’d seen him on the grass, straight lines, everything was fine.
“But there was something stopping him from going to that last step. So it’s not great for us, but it gives others an opportunity.
“He’ll be a part of it (the squad). I had that conversation with him last camp. He knew he wasn’t going to play any minutes in regards to the changing room, but to have Aaron around the lads is definitely beneficial.”
Wales can avoid the play-offs in March by beating Armenia in Yerevan on November 18 and Turkey in Cardiff three days later.
Dropped points in either game will leave them relying on other results to join already-qualified Turkey at next summer’s European Championship in Germany.
“June was a bump in the road,” Page said of damaging defeats to Armenia and Turkey in the space of four days.
“We didn’t like it. We didn’t appreciate it. We didn’t like what we saw, but we put it right in September (by beating Latvia) – and some.
“We built on that in October and capped it off with arguably one of the best performances that I’ve seen.
“We have to build on that. It will count for nothing if we don’t follow it up.”
Aberdeen left disappointed and frustrated by cup final ticket allocationAberdeen left disappointed and frustrated by cup final ticket allocation
Aberdeen have expressed their “extreme disappointment and frustration” after their “robust” case for a 50-50 split of tickets for the Viaplay Cup final was rejected.
The Scottish Professional Football League has announced that Rangers will receive about 25,000 tickets – roughly half the capacity of Hampden – but the Dons will only be allocated up to 19,500 seats for the December 17 showpiece.
An Aberdeen statement read: “The club robustly put its case to the SPFL to treat both teams fairly with an even share of tickets, given Hampden is a neutral venue and, as such, presented an option that would split the allocation for the match evenly between both competing finalists.
“Much to our extreme disappointment and frustration, this proposal was rejected by the SPFL, who cited operational challenges and attendances at previous semi-finals/finals as the principal reasons for their determination.”
Aberdeen had proposed that they hold back five sections of the North Stand and hand back tickets to pass on to Rangers by a certain date if the demand among their fans was not evident.
An SPFL spokesperson said: “Deciding ticketing allocations for cup finals is always a challenging task, as more fans invariably want to attend than the stadium can accommodate.
“We take a range of factors into consideration, including the number of tickets each club sells in the semi-finals, as well as their historic ticket sales in any previous League Cup finals and semi-finals.
“In addition, the design of the stadium and its ability to split sections is a major factor which influences our decisions, together with input from safety and security authorities to ensure fan safety and appropriate segregation.”
The league added that the split was broadly the same configuration as Aberdeen’s previous League Cup final appearance against Celtic five years ago.
There were 28,295 fans at the semi-final between Aberdeen and Hibernian.
The Dons were confident of selling a 50 per cent allocation given they took 43,000 supporters to Celtic Park when they last won the League Cup in 2014 by beating Inverness in the final.
Scotland call-up Josh Doig, Anthony Ralston and Robby McCrorie for qualifiersScotland call-up Josh Doig, Anthony Ralston and Robby McCrorie for qualifiers
Josh Doig, Anthony Ralston and Robby McCrorie have been included in the Scotland squad for the upcoming Euro 2024 qualifiers away to Georgia and at home to Norway as a batch of key players struggle for fitness.
Goalkeeper Angus Gunn, captain Andrew Robertson, plus fellow defenders Kieran Tierney and Aaron Hickey – all of whom have been regular starters when fit – miss out through injury.
Verona left-back Doig earned a maiden call-up from Steve Clarke a year past September but is yet to win his first cap.
However, he will have the opportunity to stake a claim for a place at left-wing-back in the absence of Robertson and Tierney.
Celtic right-back Ralston – with six caps to his name – will vie with Nathan Patterson for the right-wing-back slot in place of Hickey.
Uncapped Rangers goalkeeper McCrorie has been added after Gunn failed to recover from the injury he sustained while playing for Norwich against Leeds last month.
Motherwell’s Liam Kelly and Hearts’ Zander Clark – both of whom made their international bows in the friendly defeat by France last month – will hope to be given the chance to make their competitive debuts in place of Gunn over the next two games.
Along with Gunn, Robertson, Tierney and Hickey, Millwall forward Kevin Nisbet and Rangers defender John Souttar, who have also had fitness issues recently, are the other notable absentees from the squad.
The Scots are already assured of qualification for the finals in Germany next summer but could still finish top of Group A if they achieve better results in their closing two matches than Spain manage in their concluding fixtures against Cyprus and Georgia.
Sport nation
Amina Umar
