Sports

LIVERPOOL — Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insists the European champions must build on a “brilliant” 2019 to turn a 13-point lead at the top of the table into a first Premier League title in 30 years.

Klopp’s men were not at their flowing best and needed the help of two VAR reviews to continue their relentless march towards the title with a 1-0 win over Wolves on Sunday.

Liverpool have now won 18 of their first 19 league games of the season and lost just once in the calendar year in the league, on top of winning the Champions League, Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup.

“2019 was brilliant but it’s not important because we count seasons, not years, so the 2019/20 season is not over,” said Klopp.

“We are halfway there, we still have 19 games to play and probably 18 or 19 of them will be like this tonight, for different reasons.

“Who cares about points in December? We just created a basis which we will work with from now on, that’s all.”

Fuming at VAR

Wolves were angry even before the VAR controversies as the Premier League Christmas scheduling meant they travelled to Anfield just 45 hours after a thrilling 3-2 win over Manchester City. 

In the match they were left fuming at the two calls that went against them in quick succession towards the end of the first half.

Mane swept home his 14th goal of the season from Lallana’s knockdown with his shoulder and referee Anthony Taylor’s initial decision was overturned.

However, Wolves were unhappy that another claim for handball against Virgil van Dijk earlier in the move was not checked.

Wolves’ frustration was compounded in first-half stoppage time when Pedro Neto’s equaliser was ruled out.

Jonny was adjudged to be offside by the tiniest of margins in the build-up to add to a number of Premier League goals over the past two days ruled out for the most marginal of offside calls.

“Anfield is amazing but they were celebrating a non-goal. It doesn’t make sense. The referee should sustain his decision,” said Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo.

“The VAR referee is miles away taking decisions on a lot of things happening here. Who is inside the game? Who feels the intensity and the flow? The referee here.”

Nuno was booked among the Wolves protestations, but the Portuguese coach’s decision to start with top scorer Raul Jimenez and Adama Traore on the bench meant he had weapons up his sleeve come the second half.

Traore’s pace was unleashed on the hour mark and Jimenez followed shortly after, but only after Diogo Jota’s fierce strike forced Alisson Becker into a smart save.

The visitors had lost just once in their previous 14 league games to move into contention for a top-four finish and they did not go down without a fight in the final stages.

“If it would be easy to win that number of games a lot more teams would have done it,” added Klopp.

“It is not easy and you have to fight with all you have. Sometimes we have more and sometimes less and the boys do that all the time, so I couldn’t be more proud of what they did again. To get that result over the line is just impressive.”

Jimenez had the best chance to claim an equaliser, but was denied by a block from Joe Gomez before Joao Moutinho, Romain Saiss, Ruben Vinagre and Traore all fired off target.

LONDON — A much-changed Leicester inflicted the final blow of Manuel Pellegrini’s time in charge of West Ham with a 2-1 win on Saturday as Manchester United closed on the Premier League’s top four with a 2-0 victory at Burnley.

Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford struck late in each half to take United above Tottenham in fifth after Spurs were held 2-2 draw at Norwich.

Pellegrini was sacked soon after the Hammers succumbed to a Leicester side that made nine changes after a Boxing Day thrashing by Liverpool.

Jamie Vardy was among those missing due to the birth of his daughter, but Kelechi Iheanacho and Demarai Gray made the most of their chance for a rare Premier League start by scoring either side of half-time.

“Anytime you come in if you’re not playing so much you have to try and stamp your mark and get yourself in the team,” said Gray, who also saw an early penalty saved by Lukasz Fabianski.

The Foxes move 10 points behind Liverpool, having played two games more, and stretch their lead in second over Manchester City to four points.

Pablo Fornals levelled for the Hammers just before half-time, but a seventh defeat in nine games left them just one point above the relegation zone.

“It has become clear that a change is required to get the club back on track in line with our ambitions this season,” said the Hammers joint-chairman David Sullivan.

“We felt it was necessary to act now in order to give the new manager as much time as possible to try and achieve that goal.”

United closed to within a point of fourth-placed Chelsea with Martial and Rashford again their talismen at Turf Moor.

Martial produced a clinical finish after Andreas Perreira pounced on an error from Charlie Taylor a minute before half-time.

United had to wait till stoppage time to secure all three points when Rashford rounded off a rapid counter-attack as they kept a first clean sheet in 15 league games.

“It is a big difference to get a clean sheet. It is important for us to know we can grind out results as well,” said United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Tottenham have also struggled for clean sheets under Jose Mourinho and their defensive deficiencies were again exposed by bottom-of-the-table Norwich.

Mario Vrancic was afforded time and space to fire the Canaries into an early lead and only the finest of margins on a VAR review for offside denied Teemu Pukki putting Norwich 2-0 up before half-time.

Christian Eriksen’s brilliant free-kick levelled for Spurs early in the second half, but Mourinho’s men shot themselves in the foot again soon after as Serge Aurier’s own goal restored Norwich’s lead.

Tottenham’s dominance after the break was rewarded eight minutes from time through Harry Kane’s penalty after the England international had been chopped down inside the area.

“We conceded two very, very bad goals,” bemoaned Mourinho.

“You cannot concede as many goals as we do but our defensive mistakes are match after match.”

Ancelotti’s flying start

Carlo Ancelotti’s flying start at Everton continued with a 2-1 win at Newcastle thanks to a double from the in-form Dominic Calvert-Lewin to move into the top half.

The 22-year-old twice showed his predatory instincts from close range either side of Fabian Schaer’s equaliser.

Crystal Palace missed the chance to close to within three points of the top four as they surrendered a lead to draw 1-1 at Southampton, as Danny Ings cancelled out James Tomkins’s opener.

Brighton climbed up to 14th, five points clear of the drop zone, as Alireza Jahanbakhsh and Aaron Mooy scored their first goals for the club in a 2-0 win over Bournemouth.

Watford closed to within three points of safety thanks to a second home win in as many games under Nigel Pearson as Troy Deeney scored twice in a 3-0 win over Aston Villa 3-0 despite the Hornets playing half an hour with 10 men after Adrian Mariappa saw red.

MILAN — Same look, same impressive build and same oversized ego: Zlatan Ibrahimovic returns to AC Milan for a final challenge seeking to prove that he remains the superstar he claims to be.

The 38-year-old Swedish striker signed a six-month contract with the struggling Italian giants on Friday vowing to help rescue their season.

“I’m coming back to a club I hugely respect and to the city of Milan I love,” he said.

“I’ll fight together with my teammates to change the course of this season. I will do everything to make it happen.”

Ibrahimovic knows the game in Italy, having played for three different Italian clubs.

He first joined Juventus in 2004, moving on to Inter Milan after the match-fixing scandal in 2006, then arriving at AC Milan in 2010 on loan before making the move permanent. 

In 85 games for AC Milan over two seasons, Ibrahimovic scored 56 goals. 

One of the most successful clubs in the world, AC Milan are 11th in the league just seven points above relegation. 

The club have come up short in their attacking options with just 16 goals in 17 games.

Ibrahimovic left Los Angeles Galaxy last month after a two-year stay and 52 goals in 56 games, leaving him free to sign with another club.

Milan must hope that showy Swede, never far from the headlines, will bring some punch and a winning mentality to the locker room.

The son of a Bosnian and a Croatian, Ibrahimovic grew up in Rosengard, a tough working class neighbourhood of Malmo, Sweden.

Among young people with immigrant backgrounds, Ibrahimovic has become even more of a symbol, as have his cocky attitude, individualism and zealous ambition.

But he has fallen out of favour in his hometown where a bronze statue unveiled in his honour in Malmo in October has been vandalised by fans angry that he has bought shares in a club in Stockholm. 

‘Fascinating character’

Ibrahimovic had turned out for many of Europe’s top teams, such as Amsterdam’s Ajax, AC Milan, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United, before he signed for US team LA Galaxy in 2018.

In his second autobiography entitled “Football is me”, published in 2018 he claims to have changed the history of his sport.

“Now go back to baseball,” he told his supporters at the Los Angeles Galaxy, where he was, between 2018 and 2019, the best player in the North American Championship.

“I came, I saw, I conquered. Thank you LA Galaxy for making me feel alive again.”

During his time at PSG he promised to stay “if they replace the Eiffel Tower with [his] statue”.

“I arrived like a king, I’m leaving like a legend,” he said after he left the French club. 

He proved in California that he still had legs after injuries precipitated his departure from Manchester United in 2017. 

“Lions do not recover like humans,” he said. 

But Ibrahimovic’s strength is that he has the talent to back up his verbal jibes.

He delighted fans with his “kung fu” goals, his outrageous overhead goal against England in 2012, or the slalom in 2004 with Ajax, dribbling past six players to beat the goalkeeper, which launched his career. 

At PSG, he became the best scorer in the club’s history, with 156 goals in 180 games, before being overtaken by Edinson Cavani. 

He was twice top Serie A scorer, in 2009 with Inter and in 2012 with AC Milan, he also has the record for the Swedish national team with 62 goals. 

His first year with Manchester United was a success, with 28 goals in 46 games, before he was sidelined with a his knee ligament tear before leaving Europe in March 2018.

But he remains and exemplary professional, as Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti found.

In his book, “My Coaching Secrets”, Ancelotti said he had been told the Swede was “a difficult player to manage”. 

But he discovered at PSG a player “very available and professional, always focused on his work”. 

“His fascinating character and extraordinary consistency in training have always been examples for his teammates,” added the Italian.

At the age when most players are on the decline, the Swede is trying to stretch an already rich career.

France’s Thierry Henry and England’s David Beckham returned to Europe at the end of their careers, after an exile across the Atlantic, but without regaining their lustre. 

Succeeding where these stars have failed is a challenge the size of the Swede.

DOHA — Gianni Infantino is determined to make his new, expanded Club World Cup “the best club competition in the world” as well as the most lucrative, as he revealed that FIFA have had nine offers to buy the commercial rights to the tournament.

The president of world football’s governing body was in Qatar for the final of this year’s Club World Cup, with Liverpool beating Flamengo 1-0 on Saturday in what was the penultimate edition of the tournament in its current format.

It will return here next year, before a new, 24-team tournament begins in June and July 2021, with China having already been awarded hosting rights.

“I want the Club World Cup to be the best in terms of quality on the pitch but also in terms of revenues,” Infantino told journalists in Doha on Friday, adding: “Whatever FIFA is doing has to be the best, that’s clear.”

While the existing Club World Cup features only the six continental champions as well as the champions of the host nation, the new event will see many of the biggest sides in the world — including eight from Europe — descend on China for the first edition.

The FIFA chief previously claimed that the expanded competition could generate as much as $50 billion in revenue.

He believes the added depth, combined with the fact the competition will now be played at the end of the European club season, makes it an irresistible prospect for bidders.

“It will be in June when traditionally we have World Cups, so the conditions I think will be optimal,” he said.

“We are commercialising the competition now and up to yesterday [Thursday] we had nine offers that were much more interesting than what I had thought, so that shows there is a big commercial interest.”

A larger Club World Cup raises the prospect of more match-ups like Saturday’s final, for which a huge Brazilian contingent was in Qatar.

There are many issues raised by the introduction of such a new tournament, not least the already bloated match calendar.

The inaugural edition is also set to clash with the next Africa Cup of Nations, a competition that was recently moved from January-February to June and July to avoid clashing with the European club season.

However, the new Club World Cup will only be held every four years and replaces the Confederations Cup.

The 49-year-old said he accepted concerns about the amount of football being played, but defended FIFA’s need to “foster discussions to see how we can make the game better”.

He recently made the same defence amid reports he was backing a proposed breakaway Super League, but on Friday Infantino admitted he wanted to expand the number of clubs who could become major global names.

“Today we have 10 to 12 clubs who are up there, and they are all in four or five countries in Europe,” he said, before hinting at a possible move towards a larger, closed elite.

“If you want to develop football in the world, then we need to have the ambition and the objective to have 50 clubs around the world who people can identify themselves with, and we have to think about what kind of platforms and competitions we can give them.

“The new Club World Cup is certainly one that goes in that direction.

“If we can pay and generate more revenues for the big clubs — the 10 to 12, or 15 to 20 Europeans, but also 30 around the world — then you have done something good.”