Filed under: Celebrities,Aston Martin
Patrick Stewart marks Beatles anniversary with a story about driving Paul's Aston Martin originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 27 Sep 2019 18:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A collection of luxury cars confiscated by Geneva authorities from a son of the president of Equatorial Guinea is estimated to fetch 18.5 million Swiss francs ($18.67 million) this weekend, Bonhams auction house said on Friday. Swiss prosecutors said in February that they had closed an inquiry into Teodoro Nguema Obiang for money-laundering and misappropriation of public assets with an arrangement to sell the cars to fund social programmes in the former Spanish colony. Twenty-six Ferraris, Lam
Continue reading 75 fine cars seized from Equatorial Guinea president's son go to auction
75 fine cars seized from Equatorial Guinea president's son go to auction originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 27 Sep 2019 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Tons of celebs drove the 'Top Gear' Vauxhall Astra, and now it's for sale
Tons of celebs drove the 'Top Gear' Vauxhall Astra, and now it's for sale originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 23 Sep 2019 13:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Jessi Combs' record attempt to be submitted for Guinness World Record
Jessi Combs' record attempt to be submitted for Guinness World Record originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 21 Sep 2019 23:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Petersen Automotive Museum honoring Jessi Combs with special exhibit
Petersen Automotive Museum honoring Jessi Combs with special exhibit originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 18 Sep 2019 13:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsSTAMFORD BRIDGE — As he trudged from the turf, Mason Mount put his hands over his eyes as if desperately attempting to hold back the emotion.
The Chelsea crowd stood as one, out of respect and gratitude but also out of sympathy. No footballer escapes injury, but Mount’s face demonstrated his fear to Frank Lampard on the touchline.
The next two days will be spent with fingers and toes crossed for positive results from ankle scans. After a turgid, tepid evening at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea could do with the shot of good news.
Mount spent the build-up to his Champions League recalling his memories of watching Chelsea in this competition as a ballboy. His season to date has passed by in a dream sequence blur, a series of milestones passed at a quicker rate than even the most rampant optimism would allow. Now for the first true test of faith.
Mount can at least be buoyed by the knowledge that he will be missed. It says plenty about his increasing importance to Chelsea that his first-half substitution initially caused Frank Lampard’s team to suffer in his absence. In a midfield three with Mateo Kovacic and Jorginho, Mount is responsible for linking midfield and attack. Pedro, his replacement, stayed forward and thus caused the two to become separate. The result was a crowded final third with little service for them.
Mount will be a loss to Chelsea far beyond Tuesday evening too. He represents more than his own considerable ability, the representative of a new Stamford Bridge movement in which academy graduates are championed. Through little fault of their own, Pedro and Willian suddenly appear as yesterday’s men at a club trying to live in tomorrow’s world.
Valencia are a club at civil war, players and supporters equally disillusioned by the departure of manager Marcelino after only three games of the La Liga season. His departure was hardly a shock – quite the opposite after a public disagreement with owner Peter Lim over the club’s summer transfer business.
The accusation is that Singaporean owner is a distant owner who only intervenes to fix things that ain’t broken, and a club statement on the eve of the game did little to appease those few Valencians who made the trip to west London. Most of them had watched Valencia concede five goals to an under-strength Barcelona at the weekend; they never did that under Marcelino.
But if that gave Chelsea a chance to stamp some authority on their Champions League group, it was limply passed up. Not only was a first clean sheet of the season ruined by Rodrigo’s second-half finish, Chelsea failed to score in a Champions League home game for the first time since 2011. If that wasn’t enough, the game’s winner came less than two minutes after Lampard had moved Pedro to right wing-back and Cesar Azpilicueta into central defence. The tactical gamble backfired.
Valencia were more accomplished than their start to the season suggested. If Coquelin was fortunate to avoid a red card for his indentations on Mount’s ankle, former Arsenal teammate Gabriel was magnificent in central defence, probably the game’s best player. Rodrigo Moreno was one of the players rumoured to have been made available for transfer by Lim this summer, but his run past four Chelsea players was unchecked and allowed him to poke the ball past Kepa.
This was as poor as Chelsea have looked under Lampard. They overplayed it in the final third (Willian and Pedro), turned back too often when given the chance to push forward (Marcos Alonso) and regularly misplaced passes in the Valencia half (just about everyone in blue).
Tammy Abraham glanced a header wide and Chelsea forced the occasional penalty-box melee from set pieces, but there was precious little invention or intrigue until VAR awarded the type of handball penalty that the Champions League excels in. Cue Ross Barkley clipping the crossbar and creating another penalty taker debate at a Big Six club. Were Jorginho, Abraham or Willian not better options?
Lampard will – quite reasonably – say that no project that relies upon young players will be achieved in a straight line. There will be roadblocks and setbacks, and supporters must learn to treat both the same. They have a chance to make amends against Liverpool – also beaten in Europe – on Sunday.
But this was still a damaging night for Chelsea’s hopes of Champions League progress, even this early in the competition. Away trips to Lille and Amsterdam will now define the first European journey of Lampard’s managerial career.
The post Francis Coquelin’s tackle on Mason Mount leaves Chelsea’s hopes damaged appeared first on inews.co.uk.
STADIO SAN PAOLO — It was not the glorious return you expected for reigning champions Liverpool in the Champions League.
An opening group stage defeat to Napoli, falling to two goals in the final 10 minutes, marking their first loss in 12 matches in a game which few of their supporters even attended, despite the occasion. They are still favourites to progress, of course, and on reflection those who stayed away will see the boycott as money well saved.
The club sold out their 2,558 allocation – fans still purchase the tickets to collect points to ensure future tickets (also an odd system) – but some estimates had the actual away attendance as merely in the hundreds. Can you blame them?
It is a damning indictment of Uefa that fans’ safety remains a concern to this day, but three Liverpool supporters were stabbed in Naples before a Europa League tie in 2010 and last year, when Liverpool travelled to the south of Italy in the group stage, another was hospitalised.
Those travelling had been warned not to wander the Naples streets and only drink and eat in hotels, hardly the fun, adventurous and often boozy mini-holidays that well-travelled, hardcore away supporters sacrifice much of their annual leave for each year in pursuit of their beloved club.
That, plus the long history of violence with Liverpool supporters and fans of Italian clubs – the Merseyside club far from always being the victims, it should be said – was enough to dissuade many from making the flight.
With that final victory against Tottenham Hotspur in Madrid only four months ago and still fresh in the mind, they will be banking on plenty more to come again, but last night will be a reminder that nothing is a given in this competition.
The lack of Liverpool supporters was not the only noticeable absence. In fact, virtually the entire lower tier of Napoli’s Stadio San Paolo, into which the blue athletics track bizarrely cuts for one entire 100 metre straight, was empty, giving the impression the Champions League holders did not warrant a full house.
On the field it did not start with the routine dominance of the current Champions League holders, either, and it certainly did not end so. Admittedly, they were facing their toughest test in the group and manager Jurgen Klopp had made clear before the match that his side were far from the best in Europe, despite where the trophy every manager in European football covets currently resides. Early on, Fabian Ruiz forced Adrian into a quick double save, and Hirving Lozano finally headed the ball past Liverpool’s goalkeeper only for it to be ruled out for offside.
Virgil van Dijk comes into his own on nights like these and he showed why he is one of the favourites to win the Ballon d’Or, until stoppage time at least. Every ball into the box by a Napoli player was met by the seemingly skyscraper high Dutchman. When corner after corner was headed out of Liverpool’s penalty area by the same player you had to wonder and marvel at how Van Dijk is able to read the flight of a football to such a greater degree of accuracy than most other players in the world.
On the rare occasions Van Dijk was not able to be in every place at once at the back, Adrian was ready, pulling off a stunning flying save to keep out Dries Mertens’s close-range volley, five minutes into the second half. Adrian, still in for the injured Brazilian goalkeeper Alisson, appeared to dive early as the ball looped to his back post, only to hang in the air longer than gravity tends to permit most people, just long enough for his hand to deny what looked a certain goal.
For the sake of balance, there was an equally imperious defender, for 90 minutes at least, at the other end for the Italians. Liverpool’s attacks were more sporadic and on the break, but always Kalidou Koulibaly was there, in the way, blocking, heading, or diving with his head literally at Mohamed Salah on one occasion, when either the Egyptian or Sadio Mane came at Napoli’s defence with that speed would have been a fair match for anyone using that 100m track five metres away from one touchline.
Again, when Koulibaly was not there, midway through the second half, Napoli goalkeeper Alex Meret tipped Salah’s low shot across goal inches wide of the far post.
Then the moment which decided the match arrived in the 80th minute. Van Dijk was desperately trying to sprint over but Andy Robertson brought down Jose Callejon for a Napoli penalty. As though wary of Adrian’s earlier inhuman heroics, Mertens drilled the ball brilliantly into the left of goal.
Then perhaps the shock of the night in stoppage time: a Van Dijk loose pass played in substitute Fernando Llorente to add the second. Welcome back to the Champions League, Liverpool.
The post Napoli remind Liverpool that nothing is a given in the Champions League appeared first on inews.co.uk.