Sir Alex Ferguson, has challanged Owen Hargreaves to be fit and ready for the Champions League showdown with AC Milan in February. The Milan game comes in just 12 days time, and after all the injuries the reds have suffered this season, Hargreaves will be welcome return to the team who have lacked a defensive midfield player all season. Hargreaves has been out of action for some time with operations on both knees to try and fix a long term problem.

Darren Fletcher has been fantastic this term and is one of the regulars on Fergie’s team sheet when it comes to big games. Hargreaves, many feel is in the same mould when it comes to big games; remember he was England’s best player at the last World Cup against Portugal, and his tireless effort helped Manchester United lift the Champions League (European Cup) in 2008. Hargreaves has been given the target of a full week’s training to guarantee himself a place in the squad for Feb 16th.

Fergie said:

I would like to seem him make the squad for the Champions League fixtures against AC Milan, but we won’t rush him. We are being patient with the rehabilitation following his knee operations and he is alternating his training with the reserve and first-team squads, working for two days and then resting a day

Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney has just hit 100 Premier League goals. The United hit man reached the landmark against Arsenal on Sunday and could (and should) go on to hit another 100 if he stays at United for the rest of his career, as he has stated many times before.

There are rumours that Barcelona and Real Madrid are lining up £70million plus bids for the striker. But Rooney has stood firm and said that he plans on staying at Old Trafford. Rooney is in scintillating form after his 4 goal haul against Hull followed by the derby crushing of Manchester City in the Carling Cup and his goal at the Emirates against Arsenal at the weekend. Sir Alex Ferguson has set Rooney a target of 30 goals this season. By the looks of it he will be nearer 40 if he continues in such a rich vain of form until the end of the 2010 campaign.

Liverpool have been dumped out of the FA cup by premiership strugglers Reading. Liverpool lead for almost the whole game through a Steven Gerrard goal which went in through a deflection.

Rafa was then forced to take of Torres for precautionary reasons because of his knee. Liverpool played on but never really looked to take full control of the game.

Reading had a few chances but also didn’t look like they were going to take the game. Another blow came for Liverpool at half time as Gerrard who had scored the goal had to be substituted again at the time for precautionary reasons.

In the 92nd minute of the game Reading scored to make it 1-1 and send the game into extra time. 5 minutes into extra time and it was Reading again who took the chances and slotted the ball past Liverpool’s second choice keeper.

This defeat will only put more pressure on Rafa as his team this year have now been dumped out of the FA cup the League cup and the Champions league. They are 12 points behind Chelsea which in today’s game is a near impossible points difference to recoup but not impossible.

The only thing Liverpool have to fight for now is pride in the premier league and the Europa League but with the type of performance they are turning out at the moment i wouldn’t count on that being an easy ride no matter who they end up playing.

I have just read on Football.co.uk that spurs may be ready to make a bid for Chelsea’s Joe coal. Joe has been a regular in Chelsea team and has shown some good England performances. He has however had a long period out of action due to injury.

In this time Ballack has been playing in the role and since the new manager has come in a new formation is being played.

Now Harry is said to be monitoring the situation, this must show that there is an opportunity to strike as there is very seldom smoke without a fire.

Spurs are said to be thinking of balancing the books by selling Roman Pavlyuchenko, who is said to be linked with Zenit St Petersburg.

Robbie Savage has shown his trademark fiery character by arguing with a reporter on BBC Derby over rumours that the backroom staff are not up to the job.

Audio Source: BBC Sport

Savage reacted to a football phone in after his team lost recently. The radio show suggested that the staff at Derby are not up to the job of running the club properly. Savage got in touch with the show and argued against the opinion stating that he is there week in week out working with these people. He has full confidence that the staff in place are able to and to perform their job correctly.

Personally i say well done to Robbie Savage. There are a lot of football phone in shows on the radio and the people who host them often think they are god like with their knowledge and they can often be quite scathing about people. Maybe this is part of their job to encourage debate, after all its a show that depends on discussion. however they can really get stuck into some people and i don’t think any consideration is given to there actually being a real person they are talking about.

Emanuel Adebayor could be back playing for city by the weekend if reports by the Sun are to be believed. He has recently appeared on African TV wearing an Arsenal top  ( link: http://j.mp/4P0M8X) talking of his ordeal.

Fifa have declared that it is up to the Togo national team what the players can be released to go back to their domestic clubs after their team bus was ambushed killing three people. Rumours are that Adebayor could be back at Eastland’s by the weekend and ready to play. I hope he remembers to take his arsenal shirt off before he gets there though!

Reports on the BBC this morning are suggesting that Sol Campbell is set to re sign for Arsenal. Campbell left Arsenal in 2006 to play for Portsmouth, He had a great time at Portsmouth being successful. He then took a two division drop to go to Notts County, This was mainly due to Sven Goren Erickson holding a roll at the club which enticed him there on a five year deal. However, only one month into the contract he left the club.

Since then, he has been a free agent and he has been training with Arsenal to keep himself fit. Last night he played 45 minutes for the reserves team before being substituted. Now it has emerged that in the next couple of days he will be signing for the Gunners again. Sol has been quoted as saying that Arsene isn’t stupid and wouldn’t sign him if there wasn’t a roll for him.

The signing comes in the light that there is interest from other clubs including Newcastle and Hull, however Arsenal would always be Number 1 for for Sol as it is were he spent the best of his days.

Togo have been disqualified from the African cup of nations. On Friday they were subject to an attack by rebels in Cabinda who opened fire on their team coach killing 3 people and seriously injuring their substitute keeper.

Naturally after the shock of it all the players were taken back to Togo to mourn the dead. However despite all this and in a brave show of defiance, the team were hoping to return to Angola to compete in the tournament to honour the dead. Its a very courageous statement for the players to make as at the end of the day who would want to risk their lives for the sake of a game?

However, the African FA seem to have taken an extremely hard line with Togo. Togo requested that their first game be postponed so they could mourn their dead and then return to the tournament and compete. it would have been the storyline of a blockbuster movie had they returned and won but this was not meant to be. On Monday Togo didn’t play their first game of the tournament because the African FA rejected their plea to re arrange the group games. The result of this was that the team were officially disqualified from the tournament.

A very hard line to take in my opinion and shame on the organisers to make such a hard lined decision in the wake of such an attack.

Former Newcastle United player Obafemi Martins has been recalled to Nigerian Squad for their World Cup tie against Mozambique. This is to be played in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital in October.

The 24-year-old former Newcastle player’s last appearance for the Nigerian Super Eagles was in the reverse leg fixture in Maputo, Mozambique about five months ago.

Martins hasn’t always been in favour with the Nigerian team selectors as his lack of seriousness towards his international  commitments compared to his club and the fact he has been injured more often than not. However Nigeria’s current top scorer Ikechukwu Uche is unavailable due to a damaged cruciate ligament.

With all the money being spent by the big clubs and Manchester City this season bringing in more fire power you would expect to see some amazing demonstrations of how to effectively and attack and destroy ones opposition.

Real Madrid have been drawing in their fans and sold season tickets well in advance to showcase their  Galactico’s and haven’t disappointed, other teams have managed to display the players they bought. However Manchester City spent clearly more than any other team squandering the GDP of a small European country in a summer and have their stars in physio!!

Their long suffering fan and now disillusioned base must be gutted. Spending a fortune on season tickets with no stars to see for what could be half a season unless they count the troll Tevez and GBH specialist Adebayor as  stars!

Sparky give us a wave, Sparky, Sparky give us a wave!!