Sam Allardyce has done a lot of talking lately about Blackburn’s upcoming game against Liverpool. Blackburn have won their last two games, losing only once in their last six, and look to continue that streak on Sunday against Liverpool.  According to Big Sam they should have no problem accomplishing this task.

“Hopefully we can give the sort of performance that we gave against Liverpool at home. We should have won that day. We gave a terrific performance so we have got to get to that level again at the very least and if a chance comes our way, as it did against Bolton, lets be clinical enough to take it,” said the former Bolton boss.

If Blackburn can hold their own in the first half they should be able to come up with a good result as Liverpool may struggle with fitness.  According to the manager, “A player coming back from a long journey abroad will suffer a little bit of fatigue. I’ve experienced this myself as a manager and it is always that little bit harder to get a result.  I think they will try and win it in the first half because if fatigue kicks in later in the game they may get that bit weaker.”

Besides comparing the energy of the two teams Sam Allardyce has gone so far as to accuse Rafa Benitez of stooping to overly physical play and hard challenges to solidify a shaky side.  He has disparaged Benitez for complaining about the physical play he adhered to when at Bolton, while now espousing it at Liverpool.  Allardyce continued by saying that he would be just as happy to see a physical game as it would play perfectly to his and Blackburn’s advantage.

“I watched them play at Manchester City and they got six players booked, so it shows he’s brought the physical side out in them. If it’s a good physical challenge on Sunday, then I’ll be more than happy to go down that route,” Allardyce said.

Liverpool are currently suffering a mild crisis at the back with Martin Skrtel being added to the injury list after the midweek clash in Romania.  However, they are still a more skillful side, and add to that Fernando Torres, who might make his first appearance back from injury, and Blackburn will have to play at their best to steal a victory at Anfield.  Needless to say, Liverpool need all the points they can get in order to move up into fourth place and next year’s Champions League and will fight tooth and nail for a victory.

Aaron Ramsey has suffered a suspected broken leg after a horrific challenge in the late kick-off between Stoke City and Arsenal. The Welsh international, 19, was stretchered into an ambulance after a challenge from Ryan Shawcross, who left the field in tears. The reactions of players from both sides immediately showed the seriousness of the injury, with both sets of players visibly shaken for the remainder of the match.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger had strong views on the incident, as the injury was reminiscent of Eduardo’s broken leg against Birmingham City over two years ago,  as well as Diaby’s injury suffered at the Stadium of Light in 2006. He branded the challenge from Shawcross, who has recently been named in Fabio Capello’s squad to face Egypt at Wembley, as “unacceptable”.

Wenger added: “To see a young boy of 19 years old be injured like that – it’s just not acceptable. We will know how long he will be out later but he will be out for a long time.”

With Ramsey becoming Arsenal’s third serious leg break in just five years, Wenger is of the belief his side are not protected in the divison. “It’s not our first player to get a horrendous injury,” he said. “I don’t believe in coincidences. We had Diaby, we had Eduardo, and we now have Ramsey – it’s too difficult to take.”

His opposing number, Tony Pulis, spoke in defense of Ryan Shawcross, and insisted no malice was involved in the challenge. “Ryan Shawcross is a smashing lad, he hasn’t got a bad bone in his body,” said Pulis. “He’s got changed and his mum has taken him home, I have not seen him. He’ll be devastated. It’s a poor challenge, he’s broken his leg and we’re absolutely devastated for Ramsey and we wish him a speedy recovery but Ryan is not that type of kid.”

Although the match itself won’t be dominating the headlines as such, Arsenal ran way victors after two goals in stoppage time to make the scoreline 3-1 and put further pressure on Manchester United and Chelsea. Danny Pugh opened the scoring after heading in from a Rory Delap long throw, but were pegged back with a superb Nicholas Bendtner header.

After the injury, Arsenal pressed on with inspiration from their teammate behind them, and were awarded a penalty when Stoke goalscorer Danny Pugh handled, leaving Cesc Fabregas to score the penalty and fire his side into the lead. Three points were secured when Fabregas, again at the heart of Arsenal’s play, squared for Thomas Vermaelen, who formally finished in the six-yard area.

Chelsea slumped to an embarrassing 4-2 loss at home against Manchester City in today’s Battle of the Bridge (both Stamford and Wayne), opening the title race right back up for their nearest rivals. The result, meanwhile, suggests City finally has what it takes to compete for that fourth and final Champions League spot.

It was Carlos Tevez who put the Blues to the sword as he picked up the equalizer on the stroke of halftime and a second half penalty, but City’s overall performance was stunning all match. Frank Lampard’s opening goal didn’t appear to unsettle Roberto Mancini’s disciplined side, with their equalizer coming just three minutes later.

The second half was all City as Welshman Craig Bellamy scored on either side of Tevez’s penalty. Bellamy’s first goal came in the 51st minute after an extremely impressive solo run before he slotted home past a sub-par Hilario. Three minutes from time Bellamy poked home Shaun Wright-Phillips’ cross.

In the 90th minute Gareth Barry repaid Chelsea for the earlier penalty by taking down Nicolas Anelka, allowing Frank Lampard to slot home a consolation goal.

The theme of the day was Chelsea’s lack of discipline. Belletti showed a lack of concentration as his error allowed Gareth Barry into the box, and the Chelsea defender’s eventual foul earned him an early bath.

Michael Ballack’s dismissal was a firm sign of Chelsea’s indiscipline, suggesting that cracks could be exposing at Stamford Bridge. Ballack was dishonest and unprofessional all match long – his final tackle on Carlos Tevez was not only mistimed but was malicious, rightfully earning him an early bath. His earlier hand ball in the City penalty box went unpunished, but in the end it was City who got the last laugh.

The result gives City their first double over Chelsea since 1957 and has thrown the title race wide open.

Join Premiership Talk’s Zain Alvi as he covers Manchester City’s trip to Stamford Bridge to take on a dominant Chelsea side. Roberto Mancini and his men, who are coming fresh off a 3-1 FA Cup elimination at Stoke in the midweek, will find solace in the fact that the Blues also lost at Inter in a midweek Champions League clash.

For City, even competing in the UEFA Champions League next season would be an honor well earned. But in order to emerge as legitimate contenders for a spot in the top four, they will have to deliver in West London. Many headlines have already been devoted to the fact that current Sky Blues full-back Wayne Bridge – who just ruled himself out of the England squad – will come face to face with his former Chelsea teammate John Terry. To add to the drama, Bridge has already declared that he will not shake hands with Terry.

While John Terry has made it clear that he is focused on moving on to win titles this season rather than worrying about his personal life, the Blues’ dreams of silverware this season have been dealt a massive blow with the absence of goalkeeper Petr Cech for at least a month following a knock that he suffered in Milan. Considering that they face one of the best goalies in the league in City’s Shay Given, the hosts will certainly miss the big man, who has been fantastic for them between the posts this season.

It seems that this Saturday’s early kick-off (7:45am EST, 12:45pm GMT) will offer quite a bit of excitement as both teams are hurting and more importantly, both desperately need the win to stay on track with their aspirations. Follow all the action LIVE and discuss your thoughts below!

Last season, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal effectively saw its title challenge evaporate following a 2-1 defeat away to Stoke City. That evening at the Britannia Stadium, Rory Delap’s amazing ability to create major plays from throw ins went on to haunt the Gunners, who were punished for their typically naive defending from set pieces. The Gunners learned from their mistakes and ended the season strong with an emphatic win over the Potters at The Emirates Stadium.

However, they clearly didn’t learn enough to end their jinx at the Britannia. Earlier this season, an FA Cup trip to Stoke ended in a disappointing 3-1 defeat, and this time around the performance from the North Londoners was even worse. They often seemed lost with a squad that was clearly second-string and Tony Pulis’ men made their visitors pay for their lack of awareness. This weekend, Arsenal will have another shot at making amends.

The Gunners have found a way to rebound from back-to-back defeats against Manchester United and Chelsea to revitalize their title challenge and could cover more ground in the title race this weekend with the second-placed Red Devils involved in the Carling Cup Final. Chelsea’s tough home game against Manchester City, which will be discussed live here at Premiership Talk, could also end in a favorable result for Arsenal. The prospect of capitalizing big time will certainly provide an added incentive to finally win at the Potters’ own field.

Arsenal will be missing Andrei Arshavi to a hamstring injury, which means that Samir Nasri and Tomas Rosicky could be the key players on the flanks. In the back, William Gallas also remains sidelined and that only means more playing time for veteran Sol Campbell. Up front, Nicklas Bendtner needs to deliver in the absence of Robin van Persie. Stoke will most likely have their entire squad available for selection and it seems that defender Ryan Shawcross will be their key to success.

A week after the United States B-slash-C team hosted El Salvador, the “real” team will travel to Amsterdam to face Netherlands next Wednesday.  Coach Bob Bradley announced the squad yesterday, and as expected, it welcomes back a handful of European-based regulars that we haven’t seen don the red, white, and blue since the last World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica in October.

Goalkeepers: Tim Howard, Brad Guzan, Marcus Hahnemann

Defenders: Jonathan Bornstein, Carlos Bocanegra, Jay DeMerit, Clarence Goodson, Heath Pearce, Frank Simek, Jonathan Spector

Midfielders: DaMarcus Beasley, Alejandro Bedoya, Michael Bradley, Landon Donovan, Maurice Edu, Stuart Holden, Jose Francisco Torres

Forwards: Jozy Altidore, Robbie Findley, Eddie Johnson

“Thank goodness” comes to mind, directed toward Jose “Gringo” Torres’s name.  Torres has been in and out of the fold since choosing to play for the United States, instead of Mexico for which he was also eligible, in 2008.  He plays regularly for his Mexican club Pachuca, and his technical and passing ability has stood out when he has played for the US.

Torres aside, there are other refreshing faces in the squad.  It’s good to see Maurice Edu back at last.  Edu hasn’t been with the team for almost a year, and he hasn’t actually played with the team since October 2008.  This was partially due to an injury that kept him out of action for the second half of 2009, and he has only recently eased back into the Rangers team.  Before his injury he looked a promising new talent emerging onto the scene for the national team.

Edu doesn’t have a whole lot of time to become the US national team fixture that he was for a brief time in 2008, but you’ve got to think he has a legitimate chance of making the South Africa squad if he can shake off the rust.

Another refreshing inclusion is Stuart Holden.  To think it was only last October that he was being compared to Robbie Rogers… sometimes I wonder about that.  After doing a double-take during the Owen Coyle business, Holden ended up going with Coyle to Bolton.  He earned his first start for them this week in the FA Cup, in a 4-0 loss to Spurs.  If Holden plays semi-regularly for Bolton for the final few months of the season, Bradley better include him in the World Cup squad.

One thing I’m really hoping to see in this game is Holden playing central midfield.  Ricardo Clark is absent, so somebody has to do it, and Holden had been outstanding in that role for Houston over the past few years.

Bradley has selected three on-the-bubble players who featured in the El Salvador game: Clarence Goodson, Heath Pearce, and Robbie Findley (I’m not including Bornstein, since he’s been a regular for a while).  I said in my USMNT Winners and Losers piece that Goodson looked to have edged out Chad Marshall for the spare central midfield spot.  This looks like confirmation that he is, at least for the time being, the third central midfielder in Bradley’s list, behind Onyewu and DeMerit.

Pearce, unlike Goodson, may still be one or two spots removed from Bradley’s World Cup plans.  Even though Jonathan Bornstein played central defense against El Salvador, he’s not a central defender, as USMNT fans know.  That left full back spot has been his ever since he cemented it in the Confederations Cup, and he was a favorite of Bradley’s even before that.

Bornstein aside, Spector has also played left back for them, as well as right back; Spector, too, made his bones in the Confederations Cup.  Pearce is, at best, the first alternate, for the time being; but that’s not so bad considering he was totally out of the picture up until he came back to MLS a couple months ago.

Another thing I wrote in the USMNT Winners and Losers piece is that Robbie Findley would hope to benefit from a shallow US striker pool.  It seems as though he has.  He’s been given a reprieve from his ineffective performance against El Salvador, and why not?  Concerning viable strikers for South Africa, the El Salvador game showed us one: Brian Ching.  Ching, however, is very much a known quantity to Bob Bradley, and since that quantity does not look like an explosive goal-scorer, there’s no need to test him again next week.

Findley, however, is the X-factor.  He’s the guy who doesn’t have the confidence or calm at the international level that Ching has, but does have the explosive potential that — I’ll say it — Charlie Davies has, and that Brian Ching definitely does not have.  It’s a good move to test him again.

Eddie Johnson is also a sort of X-factor, but he doesn’t lack national team pedigree.  He’s more of a prodigal son, only not quite as glorified as that tag suggests.  Okay, so he’s just some guy who used to be good but hasn’t lived up to the hype in a while, and is finally sort-of-hopefully finding his feet in Greece.  I’d like to see him make an appearance, but I’m rooting more for Findley than for Johnson.

There are two players on the list who probably have close to a zero percent chance to make the South Africa trip: Frank Simek and Alejandro Bedoya.  That’s not a slight to them; it’s just that they are both young, and both have too many players ahead of them for this year.

Bedoya is in his first full professional season in Sweden, having gone straight there from Boston College.  He turns 23 in April, and he got his first national team cap this January.  Simek is 25 years old, and has at least two players ahead of him for the right full-back spot in Steve Cherundolo and Carlos Bocanegra.  Bradley might be laying the groundwork for the future with these two.

Everyone I haven’t yet touched on is pretty safe.  Howard and Guzan are obviously keeper choices one and two, respectively.  Hahnemann is a popular choice for three, but is competing with at least two MLS-ers, Troy Perkins of D.C. United and Nick Rimando of Real Salt Lake.

Landon Donovan and Michael Bradley are cut-and-dry starters.  We haven’t seen Donovan with the US since his move to Everton, so that will be an interesting story line, but little more than that.

Finally, Jozy Altidore has received mixed reviews from his time thus far at Hull City, although he seems to have turned a corner over the past month or so.  It’s pretty certain that he will be in the squad come June, if for no other reason than the fact that he’s basically the only functional, regularly-included US striker who’s not injured.

There are a few absences, as there always will be, but none are glaring (no, Freddy Adu’s absence isn’t glaring).  Edgar Castillo was passed over, but Bradley never took him seriously anyway, as he played him at left midfield in his only national team start (Castillo is a full back).  Actually, about that, everybody thought it was a strange decision, but maybe Bradley just forgot he was a full back.  He made the same mistake with DaMarcus Beasley last year too, only in reverse.

There you have it.  It’s crunch time for Bob Bradley and his staff, as they have a few too many uncertainties in the squad looking forward.  Hopefully we learn something about the fringe players in this list.  It’s funny—we thought the El Salvador game was a game of on-the-bubble players, but this game has a fair amount too.  Only these ones are generally closer to the inside of the bubble than last game’s.

After falling behind in Romania last night, it seemed Liverpool were in for a tough job in qualifying for the next round of the Europa League. However, with Rafael Benitez in charge things are never as they seem.

It may be a bold statement, but Rafa was nigh on perfect in his tactical approach and team selections in last night’s game. We all know what the Spaniard can deliver in Europe, an arena which he seems to excel in. The inclusion of the in-form Ryan Babel was the right one, and so was the decision to leave the work-horse Dirk Kuyt on the bench for some well deserved rest. Benitez knows just how important Kuyt is to the team and will need him at full fitness for the Premier League run-in. It was nice to see Yossi Benayoun slot back into the team as well alongside the inspirational Steven Gerrard.

Relating to my previous article, it seemed that Benitez didn’t fancy Alberto Aquilani. And by looking at the pitch we could see his reasons why. Rafa needed men out there to grind out a result and the Italian has yet to display that he is capable of doing this dogged job. Hopefully more chances will come his way and he can prove himself to the Anfield faithful in the future.

The same could be said for Fernando Torres. Many could argue he needs game time to improve his fitness, but once again the pitch played a pivotal role. Bringing Torres on was not worth the risk with the Reds 3-1 up, and if the already fragile striker went over on his ankle again, it could have been curtains for his season. And Benitez understands just how important Torres is for the run-in.

The only two downsides from the night were the injury to Martin Skrtel and Javier Mascherano’s apparent inability to be able to control some of his tackling. It seems like a matter of time before the Argentine gets himself sent off again, or even worse, injure himself. The reliable Kyriagkos came on in place of Skrtel and battled hard, and the removal of Carragher on 60+ minutes for Martin Kelly was another smart tactical switch from Benitez. Like Kuyt, it was important to give the vice-captain some rest and give Kelly the experience.

Unirea did occasionally threaten, but when they did the Liverpool defense held firm, and this is full credit to Benitez’s substitutes.

All in all, a job well done by Liverpool which sees them progress to the next round. Ryan Babel’s continued form was backed up by a goal and he always looked threatening. Even David N’gog seems to be coming into his own, and linked up well with the midfield players behind him. Rafa will not be happy with conceding the first goal, but his team managed to grind out a difficult win on a difficult pitch, which will put them in good stead for the next round and the rest of the Premier League season.

When a second-string U.S. team suffered a 3-1 defeat against Honduras last month, it was certainly a tough blow to take for fans of the USA. After qualifying for the FIFA World Cup, the U.S. was being considered a contender for round of 16 qualification before getting destroyed at the Home Depot Center. While not all the damage to the reputation was repaired Thursday night, the U.S. certainly showed character as they came from behind to beat El Salvador 2-1 in Tampa, Florida.

The U.S. had controlled possession and created plenty of chances early on before allowing Rudis Corrales to score against the run of play fourteen minutes after the interval. However, midway through the second half, Brian Ching made a much needed statement about the ability of U.S. strikers to head the ball home when that is needed.

Bob Bradley’s men have struggled in the past to score from headers but Ching’s thumping finish should hopefully lead to the successful execution of the integral technique. On a different note, technically sound full-back Heath Pearce deserves credit for a beautiful cross in setting up the equalizer.

Sacha Kljestan, another player who impressed on the night, completed the comeback late in the game by latching quickly to a through-ball into the box and finishing confidently past El Salvador’s goalkeeper. At the end of the day, both the U.S. goals demonstrated confidence as well as a significant improvement over the failure against Honduras last month. The next step for the United States is to become more consistent, which should raise the bar higher for future performances.