Sponsor

5/24/2551


Final twist brings United glory again

Manchester United players celebrate.
Photograph: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA

Manchester United are once more engulfed in the delirious joy of Champions League melodrama. They were on the verge of defeat in the shoot-out as the Chelsea captain, John Terry, came up to take the penalty that would have taken the trophy to Stamford Bridge. His standing foot slipped as he struck the ball and the effort flew wide. A failure by Cristiano Ronaldo had been cancelled out.

The momentum was irreversibly United's and, in the end, Edwin van der Sar ensured that the trophy would come to Old Trafford for the third time by saving the spot kick from the substitute Nicolas Anelka. This is a club that cannot come by glory in this tournament until it has scared itself senseless. The Luzhniki Stadium witnessed a spectacle to compare with the comeback in 1999 when Bayern Munich were overtaken at the close of the final.

The memorability of such a moment depends as well on the images of the losers' pain. Terry had been magnificent and, 11 minutes into extra-time, had somehow twisted his neck to head away a shot by the substitute Ryan Giggs that was bound for the net. It seemed inconceivable then that such a character could be brought low.

He is no culprit. The single person meriting blame is Didier Drogba, sent off four minutes from the close of extra-time for aiming a slap at the United centre-half Nemanja Vidic following a mêlée after Chelsea had expected the ball to be returned to them at a throw-in. That folly by the Ivorian did not mar one of the most engrossing Champions League finals of modern times. Its main side effect was to promote Terry to taking the fifth penalty.

There is always a craving to consecrate winners as deserving of their prize. It is tempting to do that because, in the first half particularly, they scored, wasted openings and were thwarted by the goalkeeper Petr Cech. That was an outstanding spell but Chelsea's self-belief was also imposing. At times they appeared ready to overpower Sir Alex Ferguson's team.

The Scot declared this to be the first major shoot-out to have gone his way, dismissing the bauble of the Community Shield that was won in just such a fashion, against Chelsea, at the start of this season. Ferguson has now conquered in all four of his European finals since the days with Aberdeen.

It might all have been different in Moscow. Drogba had struck the woodwork in the 78th minute and Lampard would do likewise in stoppage-time. Nothing, it appears, goes in favour of the Chelsea manager, Avram Grant, for long. The Israeli could well have imagined that his luck was turning when his team came through an initial bombardment. Now there will be more uncertainty and disquiet.

Terry's failure from the spot brought a gesture of wry exasperation from Roman Abramovich. The owner will ask himself if he is employing an unlucky manager or one who falls a little short of what is needed. Either way the Russian, deliberating in Moscow last night, cannot ignore the fact that Chelsea have failed to take a trophy for the first time in four seasons. Nor would he have liked the way in which United initially took his side by surprise.

To Chelsea's regret it turned out that it is possible for one of these teams to surprise the other. United did more still, disconcerting the opposition with tactics that helped Ronaldo score against these adversaries for the first time in his career. United had been sent out in a 4-4-2 formation that some might have supposed had been stashed in the Old Trafford museum. The purpose of it was to exploit the narrowness of Chelsea's 4-3-3 system and bedevil the full-backs. Michael Essien was the principal target. Accustomed as the midfielder is to operating on the right of the defence, he has no experience of the suffering to which Ronaldo subjected him. The winger had left him utterly stranded in one incident and then embarrassed him more severely with the opener in the 27th minute. Paul Scholes exchanged passes with Wes Brown on the right and the latter stroked an unexpectedly good inswinging cross with his left foot. Ronaldo skipped in front of a static Essien to glide a perfect header low into the net.

It was a bruising encounter, with Scholes, for instance, requiring attention to a bloodied nose after a crash between himself and Claude Makelele that led to a yellow card for each of them. All the same United were not diverted from performing with freedom. Owen Hargreaves brought his running power to bear from right midfield, the position in which he got his earlier Champions League winners' medal with Bayern Munich in 2001.

Ten minutes before half-time United should have been in a virtually unassailable position but Petr Cech parried Carlos Tevez's header and then reached Michael Carrick's shot from that rebound. There was a further opportunity nine minutes later when Tevez could not quite get to the low ball by Wayne Rooney that had eluded Makelele. Nonetheless United by then had been given a clue as to Chelsea's powers of recovery. When Drogba headed a deep cross into the centre after 34 minutes Rio Ferdinand, under pressure from Michael Ballack, knocked it towards his own net, only for Van der Sar to tip the ball on to the bar.

Chelsea had their fortune when pulling level. Essien's 25-yarder cannoned of Vidic and then Ferdinand to set up Lampard for a coolly taken goal. Though Chelsea had been rallying, their feelings much have contained a measure of relief. It invigorated the team thereafter. Each side took the other to its limits

Read More...



Guaranteed Extra Cash Online by: Peter V. Ruble

For college students and other people who feel burned out trying to balance paying the bills and living at the same time, ads like these can prove to be irresistible. Many of them make perfect sense and easily hook you based on good concepts. Unfortunately, many times the product or service does not match the brilliance of a great idea for making money from home or through the Internet. As I’ve learned myself, the further you go down this road, the more excited you get. You basically get hooked, and if you aren’t careful, you will end up working hard and falling further into debt than you can imagine. Much like gambling, the lure of easy money and independence can make just about anyone fall prey to work at home scams that feed off your dreams to get to your wallet so they can go on to the next victim.

Hopefully, you will never fall victim to these scam artists. However, the fact of the matter is that these scammers would not be wasting their time if they were not making any money. And as long as people continue to get mixed up in this business, these scammers are going to stick around to trick more and more people.

The best way to keep a scammer’s claws away from your credit card is to do thorough research on each opportunity that you are considering. This means doing much more than simply reading a bit about it online. In my personal experience, I have been taken by companies who were savvy enough to pollute the Internet with staged testimonials, guarantees, questionable references to big name endorsements, and even appearances in the Better Business Bureau.

A colleague of mine who invested in vending machine placement services even went so far as to physically go to the manufacturing plant to tour the warehouse as well as contact the Better Business Bureau of that state. What he received, in return, were twenty malfunctioning candy machines with a list of local businesses who had apparently agreed to receive them. Not only did none of these businesses know what he was talking about, many of them were hostile when he showed up to place them.

What you want to do is check message boards such as the ASK section of Yahoo.com. Another simple method of weeding out the scams from the genuine opportunities is to go to a search engine and simply type in the company name followed by the word “scam”. If you do this, and you are barraged by an endless list of complaints, you my friend have found a nugget of gold in a sea of mud.

In terms of the Better Business Bureau, it is best to contact them directly to ask about any complaints, and also find out how long a company has been listed. The Better Business Bureau operates state by state. They will be able to tell you if they have any complaints on file. If they do, you will want to avoid the opportunity at all costs. But if it appears that a company is doing business the right way, you can continue your own research.

Being in the Business Bureau is not necessarily that hard to accomplish. Many scammers can use their money and connections to set up a front to initially qualify for the Better Business Bureau just long enough for them to collect their cash from unsuspecting victims, close shop, create a new identity and start again.

Before you decide to do anything, attempt to get in touch with the company that you are interested in. Can you get a human being on the phone? Do they have an actually physical address? How long does it take them to respond to your e-mails, if at all? If you cannot even talk to the company before you start, there is not chance that they will be around when you really need them. I once made quite a bit of money selling vacation vouchers on auction sites. The marketing plan was sound, and the money saving vouchers was a hit. Only problem was, I could never get in touch with their customer service department to handle my customer inquiries and complaints once I realized that the promises that existed in writing on the vouchers were misleading at best. This proved to be such a problem that it took me over a year to recover from the negative publicity on my auction site.

Of course, there are legitimate home based businesses out there. With the Internet and all the low cost, web producing tools available, there seems to be a renaissance in entrepreneurship. Basically, just find a product or service you can market online, and do your research. Sell on EBay if you don’t want to build your own website. You can have a website their and all search engine marketing is already done by EBay. The Small Business Association has an office in downtown Tacoma and contains invaluable information on their website http://www.sba.com/. Since small business is the backbone of our country economically, sources such as these are eager to help you create a plan with realistic expectations.

However, like anything else worthwhile, you have to do your homework and work hard at it. The problem is that too many people make you think you can practically go online and make money just clicking on a mouse. You want to steer clear of any business that asks to you to pay for their “Top Secret” e-book that will teach you how to make an automated income.”

Think about it, if you are in dire need of cash, can you imagine any other situation in which you would not only work for free, but pay for the privilege to work. There are no magic formals or secrets worth paying for. All of the information in these e-books can be found for free through your own research if you have common internet skills.

If you don’t want to work hard and just make a few easy extra bucks without donating your blood or volunteering to be a guinea pig, it is possible to make some good extra money filling out online surveys or through mystery shopping. There are real opportunities out there which require no fee to get started. Not only that, several of them will even give you a $5 bonus just for signing up. If a company such as this is legitimate, they would be making lots of money through the success of its members. Companies that require that $49.97 start up fee only make money through the fee and only want to teach you how to get other people to do the same. The products are all useless lists and general information that anyone with a functioning mind could figure out on their own, or get for free by doing their own research.

In 12 years of trying to make a living on the Internet, the following are the best companies I have ever encountered for making a few extra bucks filling out surveys, playing games and mystery shopping. They probably won’t pay the rent, but if you’re interested in making an extra $400 or $500 a month or eating out at nice restaurants and going to movies for free, you may want to check these out:

Mystery Shopping Providers Association: ." target=new>http://www.mysteryshop.org/shoppers/">.

This site contains all the information you will ever need on starting up as a mystery shopper. It is also a portal for the best sites to go to for mystery shopping jobs online, and they don’t require that you invest a penny.

InboxDollars.com. (you can sign up for free and get $5 just for signing up. You can make a few hundred dollars in one day, theoretically, if you are willing to use a credit card to sign up for free or paid trials. Just make sure you have the patience to fill out the long surveys and keep detailed records so you can remember to cancel your free trials before you get charged. Also, you can fill out surveys to make a dollar or two which are completely free. I’ve made about $400 with this site.

http://www..sendearnings.com.(almost/ identical to InboxDollars.com)
http://www.treasuretrooper.com/. (a lot of free surveys and cool games). http://www.tiktikcash.com/. By far the best of the survey sites.

The free surveys are tremendous. You can make a dollar or two in one minute. This site has the shortest, most painless surveys. I made over thirty bucks in less than after signing up.

Read More...

5/16/2551

Health And Wellness Depend On The Colloidal Trace Minerals We Consume
Author: Darrell Miller

Colloidal trace minerals are just as important to our health and well being as vitamins. Practically since birth we have had it pounded into us that we must eat our vitamins if we are to be healthy. The fact is that vitamins are of little use to you without minerals which are as essential for your metabolism as any vitamin is.

The essential minerals are the inorganic equivalents of the essential organic vitamins. They work together to maintain the biochemistry that keeps you alive. Take calcium, for example. That is a mineral needed for healthy teeth and bones, among many other things, but it is no good without vitamin D. Magnesium and potassium are also needed for healthy bones. Take blood clotting: vitamin K is the blood clotting vitamin, but blood will not clot without calcium.

How is energy generated in your body from the carbohydrates and sugars that you eat? They are converted to glucose that is converted to energy in every cell in your body and used in-situ. Your heart gets the energy to beat from cells in the heart - energy does not float around the blood waiting to be used. It is generated by means of the production of a substance known as ATP - adenosine triphosphate of which phosphorus is an essential component. Without the mineral phosphate none of us would be alive - nor would any form of life for that matter. ATP is the universal molecule of life.

So far we have discussed some of the seven major minerals: calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, sodium and chlorine. There are many more that your body needs, and estimates vary from 45 to 70 trace minerals, without which you would find it difficult to function properly. Although your body can make many of the organic substances needed for life from vitamins, amino acids, fatty acids and proteins, it cannot make minerals which have to be taken in as part of your diet. They must be taken in your regular diet or as a supplement.

In the USA a major mineral is one that is needed in amounts greater than 100 mg (0.1g) a day, and trace minerals are required at less than 100 mg a day. So one that is needed at 100.1 is major, and one at 99.9 mg is trace. Is there a difference in the source of trace minerals, or would any source be good enough? The answer lies in the construction of the human body, and the way in which it absorbs minerals.

Your body is not designed to absorb metallic minerals. The way that such minerals are available in your diet is as part of larger organic molecules, and this is the way they must be taken as a supplement. Thus, you can't just drink a soluble metal salt because it will pass straight through you with only around 5% absorption, if it doesn't poison you first. For supplement purpose, metallic minerals are chelated, or combined with larger organic molecules such as proteins and amino acids, and this increases absorption to as high as 50%.

The necessity of trace minerals in the human diet was not discovered, as much as the result of a number of studies on various societies and remedies that appeared to have no basis for their effects. The Hunzas and Azerbaijanis, for example, are known to live very long lives, and investigations into this showed their diet was very rich in colloidal trace minerals from glacial water and food grown in soil enriched by that water.

It was through studies such as this and also investigation into the metabolites obtained from liver extracts that indicated the importance of many trace minerals. Take arsenic, for example. A known poison in larger quantities, trace quantities have been found to be metabolized by the liver, and while no studies have been carried out on the use of arsenic as a trace element in human biochemistry, studies on rats and human liver extracts have indicated that it could have a part to play in normal growth and reproduction.

Trace minerals take part in many enzyme reactions, and physicians now agree that many health conditions could be enzymic in origin. It follows, then, that trace elements are important in maintaining good health. It is certainly true that we cannot live without any of the seven major minerals. And it is just as certain that many of the trace minerals are just as import to human biochemistry as the major ones. It is certainly true of vegetables, which are less complex biological entities than humans, and if tomatoes need at least eight known minerals for good growth then it is certain that we will need a lot more. No studies are needed to convince us of that.

Take zinc, for example. Zinc is essential for proper liver function, wound healing and reproduction: spermatogenesis, the proper development of the primary and secondary male sex organs, and all area of the female reproduction process. Zinc is classed as a trace element, as is selenium, a deficiency of which can lead to heart disease, mental retardation and impaired function of the thyroid. Selenium deficiency is not common in the West but is in China where many areas are depleted of selenium. However, if zinc and selenium are known to be essential, how many of the other seventy or so trace minerals are also essential to human health?

The trace minerals in general are believed to protect us from some degenerative conditions, the effects of environmental pollution and help to protect us from the effects of an excessive intake of toxic minerals. Although there have been insufficient studies carried out on most trace minerals, it is known that they should be taken in chelated form, metallic in nature or not.

It is also known that such minerals should be taken as a balanced mixture as found in nature. A bullet approach, using an individual mineral to treat a certain condition, could lead to an imbalance in the body, and severe side effects, some of which might not yet be known. What is known is that certain minerals are tolerated by each other in specific relative concentrations, but if this balance is upset then they can inter-react and produce unpleasant side effects on, for example, the delicate balance of minerals in the blood.

It is becoming increasingly clear that modern farming methods have resulted in mineral depletion of the soil, and that our normal diet now only contains a small number of the minerals that our forefathers were taking. Plants draw up minerals from the soil when they grow, and we take in these when we consume them or the animals that live on them. Saturation of the soil year in year out by chemical fertilizers low in or devoid of trace minerals has resulted in a sterile environment for our feedstock, and has made colloidal trace mineral supplements almost mandatory for good health.

Today's plants can contain fewer than 20 minerals, compared to the 70 plus of our ancestors. Life expectancy is increasing in spite of our increasingly poor diet rather than because of it, and is due more to medical advances than to advances in agriculture. A mineral supplement does seem necessary, but when you take one it should be balanced so that no one mineral is in excess at the expense of another.

This helps to reduce the possibility of overdosing on an individual substance while maintaining a natural balance of minerals in your body to make sure that your normal biochemistry is not interrupted by some deficiency or excess that has yet to be discovered. While this might seem a spurious argument, you can be certain that those in the past that used cadmium and lead as cosmetics would rather have known the effects of these toxic substances that eventually killed them.

So use chelated trace mineral by all means, but make sure that they are balanced and tested so that nothing is present that can upset the normal balance of minerals in your body. If they work for tomatoes they should work for you!

Read More...


THE Better Browser

Firefox Is Better 2008
Find out why so many people are ditching Internet Explorer and joining the masses. The Firefox browser is FREE, Safe, and easy to use.
Why Is Firefox Better? Firefox Web Browser is a FREE and open source project developed by a community of people led by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. Firefox is 100% free to the public and available to download from the Firefox Website. Why is Firefox better? Firefox has a large repository of add-ons available from the Firefox Website. The add-ons page features plug-ins for just about every thing you could need. Add-ons range from news and media fetching, to music and media extendability, and even security and privacy. Even more exciting are the wide variety of themes available for your Firefox browser. Changing the look and feel of your Firefox browser is as simple as a click of a mouse! Browse the web faster.
Firefox is a better browser simply because it’s more secure than other browsers.

Updates to your browser happen automatically so you don’t have to worry about getting security fixes. Installing themes and add-ons take only one click making it easy enough for everyones skill level. To really see why Firefox is better you should give it a test drive yourself!

Read More...

5/10/2551

PC sales 2008 and beyond, laptops are taking over desktops
By: Christophe Luc Catesson

Sales review for 2007, 2008 and beyond According to the Gartner Group, worldwide some 257.1 million PCs shipped in 2007, and 60 percent of them were desktops. PC growth for 2007 was around 7 and will continue to maintain a double digit growth at least until 2010. Desktop sales are still strong in the EMEA and Latin America with about 60% of all shipments.
In the US alone, the laptop shipments grew in 2007 by 21 percent while Desktops sales went down four percent last year. By 2011, IDC expects laptops to represent 66 percent of corporate purchases, with 71 percent of consumers opting for a notebook instead of a desktop.

The slowdown in the United States economy in 2008 has reduced PC sales. For the first-quarter 2008 computer sales rose in the United States just 3.5 percent. Worldwide, computer sales rose by 14.6 percent, IDC said. Laptops will account for two thirds of the worldwide PC shipments by 2011, according to a new report by IDC. In all markets, the growth came from laptop sales to the detriment of desktop sales. The PC market is changing from "one PC per household to one PC per person," said Bob O'Donnell, vice president of clients and displays at IDC.

With other countries maintaining double-digit PC sales growth as the United States slows, the United States represented 23 percent of the world market, down from 25 percent last year.
Specific reasons of the evolution from desktop to laptop:
Due a constant drop in price, rapid technical improvements, the swift evolution and extension of the WAN technology, the multiplication of applications and their effects on our lifestyles, notebooks are destined to replace desktops in most areas both professionally and personally.

- Price: While laptops are still more expensive than desktops for the same power/capacity, the gap is constantly narrowing. In 2000 you could expect to pay almost double for a laptop comparable to average desktop priced around $1,000. In 2008, you can expect a $300 to $500 difference depending on brands. Entry level laptops start in the $300 range while the mid range is situated around $700, a huge difference from just five years ago.

- Power: In the early 2000s, any heavy database user or serious gamer would always pick a desktop over a laptop. This barrier has come down drastically; in fact many IT departments have migrated to laptops and only the most serious queries are run on servers. The same applies to gamers where only the most demanding games need to be run on the most advanced desktop. For average use, the desktop no longer has any specific advantages.

- WiFi/Hotspots: The explosion of wifi / hotspots is a decisive factor that helps explain the migration to laptops. Airports, hotels, trains, restaurants, coffee shops… are among the location where you can actually go online at a very comfortable speed. You can even use such tool as Skype with a wireless laptop and have video conference anywhere you have WiFi access. Indeed more and more people go on vacation with their laptop and most hotels, including the cheaper ones, are now offering free wifi as commodity not a luxury.

- Portability/visibility: Laptops are continually getting lighter while screen sizes are getting bigger. Most new laptops come with 17 inch screens and weigh less than 7 pounds. Those with 15 inch monitors generally weigh less than 5 and in some instances less than 3 pounds.

- Professional market evolution: Past laptop growth in the professional sector was fueled by travelers (sales, tradeshow, meetings…). In the last decade working from home has steadily developed with many companies allowing their employees to work at home anywhere from one day a week to full time. These are often perceived as cost savers, productivity booster and flexibility factors for both the employees and employers. More and more online applications are designed so that you can work remotely with the same tools available in the office. Such online applications include: - Audio/Visual Conferencing - Placing Calls

- Document sharing and storing - Scheduling - Webmail - Software accessibility. The software i.e. Microsoft Office is stored on a server, you can use it on your laptop (via a small application installed on your laptop) - Messengers…
Events such as the slowdown of the economy and the explosion of gas prices will continue to accentuate that trend.

- Educational market evolution: More and more educational institutions are requiring their students to have laptops; it started in the universities and his working its way to the younger students. In addition, once students get used to laptops, rarely do they buy a desktop later on for themselves.

- Personal market evolution: decreased price, increased power and improved portability with the explosion of hotspots have been essential to the switch from desktop to laptop. Furthermore, the multiplication of applications for personal use have affected our lifestyle and are starting to make the laptop as indispensable as cell phones are today. Such applications include: - DVD player, - Video On Demand, - Picture display, - Music player, - Internet radio - Games, - GPS, - Communication (Skype, messenger…), - Social gatherings (facebook, myspace…).

The desktop is evolving more and more in a different market demand such as Media PC environment (TV tuner, DVR, radio, music) for the home or used as back up device for your laptop. Chances are that when it is time to replace your DVD player you will may buy a PC. This will enable you to download TV shows on your computer and watch them on your TV.
What's next for laptops?
- They will continue to improve in the traditional "way" catching up with the desktops in term of power, capacity and price, replacing desktop for most needs.
- Another aspect is the extra portability evolution already underway with mini laptops, palmtops, tablet PCs and touch screen laptops. Combining extreme portability, WiFi and tactical screens, these mini laptops will replace gradually paper and pads, order sheets, notebooks and others... As you write or type or write any information on your mini laptop (orders, notes, drawings, questionnaires….) you have the ability to immediately save, sync or communicate the results.

Conclusion As the sales demonstrate, the PC industry as a whole is growing steadily worldwide. Laptops are now undeniably taking the lion share of that growth. The range of laptops is large enough for anyone's demand from desktop replacements to ultra portables. They allow us to perform personal tasks (accounting, gaming, reservations…) to educational (research, reading, interactive, video, audio) and professional (documents, programming, calls, conferences, scheduling, emails) from anywhere, at anytime, also allowing us to mix all these activities.

Read More...

Work At Home Internet Business Ideas For You
By: Michael Tasker

A basic idea can go on to be a lucrative money earner for the work at home business but it is where to find such ideas that is often the problem. The internet is huge and you may think that there is no further room for another work at home internet business. Don't worry, there is plenty of room for a new idea to blossom.

The question of how to find work at home internet business ideas is the first you should ask yourself. Listed below are some helpful pointers and help for you to find a work at home internet business idea that will suit you.

1. Research for an idea - Look around you and see if you can spot an opportunity for a work at home internet business. Is there a problem that people have, yet the solution is not available? Is there a major want that is unsatisfied? The best reference base for ideas is of course the internet.

2. How to deliver the idea - How are you going to make your idea available to potential customers? You can sell through online auctions such as eBay, you can sell tangible goods on the internet, or you may sell a service to customers. You could also serve as a business to business product or service provider, otherwise known as B2B, and this might be another route you would like to take for your work at home internet business.

3. Sourcing the idea - you have an idea for your work at home internet business but where do you find products? You need to take a look at a couple of different websites to help you decide what might work for your work at home internet business. The first website is Clickbank. This website is effectively a market place with many different products that you can buy or choose to promote on a website. It is easy to locate which products are selling well and this may create ideas for you to improve the products potential even more.

Hot Tip - Internet marketing experts have made very good money by taking an existing product and putting a twist on it, this can allow you to be very successful with your work at home internet business.

4. Promote other peoples products/services - If you find that a product or service would be a very good idea for your work at home internet business, you can then promote that product as an affiliate. In this scenario, apart from getting traffic to your website and sending leads to your affilaite page, everything else is the responsibilty of the affiliate themselves.You will be paid a commission for each sale of the porduct.

Hot Tip - Another place to visit to get ideas for your work at home internet business is homebiz-direct.com. This website can prove to be very helpful to your work at home internet business because it lists different opportunities available in both products and services that you can sell.If you are new to this, it might be a good site for you to visit to get a feel for the variety of products available.

Just remember, don't try and re-invent the wheel.Your work at home internet business idea doesn't necessarily have to be revolutionary. You can either improve on an existing idea or you can figure out how to market an existing product better. Look at what other internet businesses have done and see if you can do it more effectively. Remember that you do not necessarily have to create the product but if you can locate a hungry unsatisfied market, you will have the opportunity to make a great deal of money for your work at home business.

Read More...

5/03/2551

WHO ARE THE CHAMPION !!!


Return Match :English Team VS English Team


Manchester United FC and Chelsea FC might both have the excitement of a UEFA Champions League final to look forward to at the end of the month but before that fixture there is a Premier League title to be won. Keen for success on all fronts, Ji-Sung Park and Petr Čech are urging their respective sides to remain focused on the task in hand and not let their thoughts drift ahead to Moscow on 21 May.

Tight at the top
Chelsea's 2-1 Premier League win against United at Stamford Bridge last Saturday has left the sides level on 81 points with two games remaining. United still hold the upper hand due to their superior goal difference and can re-establish a three-point lead with victory at home to West Ham United FC on Saturday ahead of Chelsea's visit to Newcastle United FC two days later. Both title contenders are sure to be in buoyant mood and both Park and Čech are keen to capitalise on that positive atmosphere as the season reaches a climax.

'Working hard'

"We got the win because eleven players worked hard and showed good concentration for the whole 90 minutes, but we have to remember we've got two important games before the Champions League final," said Park after an impressively hard-working display in United's 1-0 defeat of FC Barcelona at Old Trafford on Tuesday night. "We need to win them before we think about that."

'Incredible atmosphere'

The Korea Republic international had tasted semi-final disappointment before, having lost to AC Milan in 2004/05 while at PSV Eindhoven, but Tuesday’s win extends a remarkable record for the 27-year-old. The match was his 12th start of the season and United have won all bar one of those games – the sole draw coming in the Camp Nou – and prolongs a run of 22 United wins from Park's 24 starts over the last two campaigns. The midfielder has no doubt what made the difference against Barça, adding: "The atmosphere was incredible. I've never seen or heard anything like it. The fans gave me extra power. It's fantastic, difficult to put into words. It's amazing and I'm really looking forward to playing in the final."

'What a time'

After beating Barcelona United's players were quick to tell the press that a similar effort from the crowd would be required against West Ham, a match Chelsea will be watching with interest. Čech is desperate to ensure the west London club do not end the season without a trophy for the first time since 2003/04. "What a time is coming now," he said. "We hope to push United all the way in the league and of course at the big event in three weeks in Moscow. For the character and hard work we have put in, we deserve to get some fruit in the end – this might be the final or it could be the title again."

'Nothing changes'

Chelsea might be playing 48 hours after United this weekend but their goalkeeper believes they cannot afford to be distracted by events elsewhere. "We'll know exactly what's happened at the weekend and this could be an advantage or not. We'll know United's result against West Ham but nothing changes – we need to win both games. It's very exciting for everyone to see both English clubs competing for the title and now for the Champions League as well and I'm looking forward to it."

By Andrew Haslam

Read More...