Silly season round-up

It's been 7 weeks since the end of the football season. Not long. Already it seems some teams have entered some sort of withdrawal-induced meltdown, with several strange, outlandish and just plain dumb transfer requests and rumours

Without further ado, let's get down to the business end of my first silly season round-up.

Signing of the week: Manchester United finally completed a widely expected signing of young Spanish goalkeeper David De Gea. A star of the future, De Gea will have to face the tough task of filling the gloves left empty by retiring legend Edwin Van Der Sar. The big Dutchman was consistently brilliant during his time at Old Trafford. De Gea's former coach when he was at Atletico Madrid says of the 20-year old that "he has shown that he is a winner and someone who can handle big finals." Only time will tell if Sir Alex Ferguson has correctly chosen the successor for Van Der Sar in a player with fewer than 100 first-team appearances.

Just getting started: Gossip coming from Merseyside claims that Liverpool's management and Raul Merieles are not the best of friends any more. The Portuguese midfielder provided much-needed energy and attacking intent when captain Steven Gerrard was injured. He was so willing to make his name in England that he took a large pay cut to join 'Pool on the condition that his wages for next year would increase if he played well. Merieles saved Liverpool this season. He scored several vital goals just after Kenny Dalglish took over that stabilized a club staring at a relegation battle. He fully deserves a pay increase, the club do not want to give him one and actually want rid of him. According to various sources, Liverpool are looking to make some money for their pursuits of Aston Villa's Stewart Downing and Charlie Adam of Blackpool, two players that together could replace Merieles.


Please go away: I'm tired of hearing about Cesc Fabregas. Barcelona want him, Cesc wants to go, Arsenal have said they could use the cash. Yet he remains in London. Barcelona gave an offer of £35 million last summer, and seriously reduced it to £27 million this year thanks to "wear and tear" gathered in the meantime. I wish this would all go away because, quite simply, we know how this ends. We've seen it before. A team holds onto their man as his value goes down because they believe they can force a better price. Eventually though, the team ends up accepting an offer well below the starting price and after wall-to-wall press coverage, the regular fan cannot stand the player any longer. Fabregas must be wishing for an easy divorce, for at the minute, the fans still love him. If he continues to push and push then he puts himself in danger of joining other players in being despised by fans of former teams. Take Wayne Rooney and Everton. Carlos Tevez with Manchester United, and a while back, Eric Cantona joining United from Leeds. For Arsenal's sake, and for Fabregas' legacy here, let's hope this ends peacefully.

Biggest winners: Sunderland, without a doubt. The Black Cats landed Craig Gardner for £5 million from Birmingham, have also signed Ipswich's teen sensation Connor Wickham for £8 million (from the palm of Liverpool's hand) and are also in talks with Man United's Wes Brown. Sunderland also managed to secure the services of Korean striker Ji-Dong Won, who wants to be in the first team "within 6 months". Great summer already for the team as they signal their intent to improve rather than simply maintain their position.

Biggest losers: Hard to say anyone has really lost this week, but if I had to choose, the answer is Hearts. Craig Thomson, a right-back at the Edinburgh side, was last week placed on the sex offender's register for sending "explicit images" to two underage girls. Everyone in Scotland expected the player to be instantly sacked, but this was not the case in a week to forget for the club. Hearts first said that he would be staying on, which was questionable, but okay if they were going to be providing support for him. Instead, they seemed to claim he was somehow the victim in all of this. Failure number two was a letter, apparently written by owner Vladimir Romanov, that claimed that Hearts had been "battling for seven years" to protect the club from corrupt influences including the Mafia. He also said that Hearts' performances in the final 12 games of the season were affected by corrupt officials and players. He also accused the SPL and referees of blocking Hearts out of the title race. A bad week indeed.

Wimbledon: Murray breezes first round

There can't have been many matches where the winner has lost the 1st set only to go on and win 2 of the next three 6-0, 6-0. Andy Murray became (possibly) the first on that list with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0 victory over world No56 Daniel Gimeno-Traver in their first-round matchup at this year's Wimbledon tournament.

The Andy Murray on display in the opening set was not the one we saw two weeks ago at Queen's Club that made Andy Roddick look like an amateur. He looked cautious, slightly rusty and couldn't make an impact on Gimeno-Traver's serve - the Spaniard holding his own comfortably and asking plenty of questions on Murray's slow second serve, hammering his forehands for multiple winners. The breakthrough came in the 9th game of the set, tied at 4-4 when Gimeno-Traver converted one of his three break-points to take full control of the first set. He went on to close it out with little in the form of a comeback from the Scot.

The second set began in the same fashion until the players reached 3-3, Murray served to lead 4-3 before breaking serve for the first time and leveling the match at 1-1 after a simple hold of serve.

The opening game of the 3rd set signaled the beginning of the end for Gimeno-Traver. Murray needed 3 break points to get where he wanted to go, but finally began dominating the match the way he should have been. The wheels were well and truly falling off the Spaniard's challenge when he fell 4-0 down and practically gave up the set 6-0.

The trainer made a quick visit as the players enjoyed an extended rest between the final two sets. There was always the risk that Gimeno-Traver would have lost his focus after quitting the previous set. The fears proved true as he was broken again in the opening game. Murray began playing some of his most beautiful tennis, every drop shot and lob was finding it's mark as the world No4 completed another 6-0 trouncing to serve up a "double-bagel" to the downhearted Spaniard.

Golf: Rory McIlroy leading US Open

After that meltdown at the Masters a few weeks ago, Rory McIlroy has found the perfect reply.

McIlroy's reaction after sinking a 113-yard
chip to move him to -11 for the tournament.

Having played through 2 rounds at Congressional Country Club, the young Northern Irishman has built a lead the size of which hasn't been seen since Tiger Woods destroyed the field at Pebble Beach US Open in 2000. After his first 36 holes, McIlroy had dropped just 2 shots to lead at 11 under par. If it were not for a double-bogey on the tricky 18th, he would have set an all-time record -13 for an 10 shot lead.

As it stands, Rory leads by some 8 shots over Heath Slocum and Y.E. Yang. It's hard to call them the leaders of the chasing pack because the pack are chasing something that's been in a different universe over the past two days.

It started off as a confident, assured performance. Then it turned into one of the best rounds of his life followed by becoming something crafted by the golfing gods as McIlroy chipped in a 113-yard from the 8th fairway. He continued the staggering performance by picking up a further 2 shots to move to an historic -13. The last player to get to -12 was Woods in '00 and he went on to win that US Open by some 15 strokes. Had he not dropped two shots on the final hole of the day we may as well begin carving his name into the famous trophy.

Many will remember McIlroy's incredible disintegration which was amazing as his play at CCC. Leading by 4 shots going into the final 9 holes of the tournament, McIlroy went on to drop 10 shots to card an 8-over-par 80 on the final day to finish some 10 shots off the eventual winner. It was an awe-inspiring display of how not to close out a tournament that included a triple-bogey at the 10th and a double-bogey at the 12th. If he contrives to throw away this tournament from this position, we can say of future repeats: "He's done a McIlroy."

For Rory's sake, hope he can hang on.

NBA Finals Special: Dallas and Miami level at 2-2

Dirk Nowitzki, with a sky-high temperature thanks to a raging fever, turned to face the basket with 18 seconds to play, the game tied. He drove to the right, flipped the ball up right-handed and watched it roll in off the backboard. 14.4 seconds later, the Dallas Mavericks had come from 9 points behind late in the 4th quarter to pull level in their NBA Finals showdown with the Miami Heat.

Where did he go? Lebron James' disappointing
performance costs Miami vital win.

While Nowitzki's heroics and the Mavericks second comeback in 3 games will grab many headlines, the real story behind the Mavs' win (and the Heat's loss) is the disappearance of Lebron James.

8 points. In 89 Playoff games, Lebron has not scored as few points as he did in last night's game. It's been 434 matches since he had such a poor performance. In games that Lebron scores 15 or less, his teams have gone 0-8. He had just 4 points in the first half and attempted 1 shot in the 4th quarter, previously known as Lebron James' personal scoring time. It's harsh to pin this loss on James, Miami had 7 fourth-quarter turnovers after having 0 in the third. Wade committed a cardinal sin in fumbling the inbounds pass on the final possession of the game. What James did wrong, however, was allowed his poor offense to affect his normally stellar defense. He appeared lazy and dare I say it, uninterested. Effectively reducing the Heat to a beatable team.

What can be said for certain is that Lebron will come back big time in Game 5 on Thursday night. He's too good a player to let a game like this go unanswered. What makes the difference in this case is that Dallas have game-planned for James, their defense has played him as good as any in the league this year, allowing him just 9 points in the three 4th quarters before Tuesday night. It comes down to his will. We've seen him simply drag the Heat to wins, most recently in the Chicago series where Wade took the back seat. The flip side of James is seen in his games for the Cavaliers against Boston, the famous LeQuit game which turned out to be his final game for Cleveland.

At 2-2, the schedule favors the Heat with 2 of the next 3 in Miami. However, the momentum lies 100% in the hands of the Mavericks. Their offense was in-sync, their defense rivaled Miami's and their bench finally showed up and it was evident. The Heat did not play exceptionally bad through 3 quarters. Very few turnovers, average shooting and very good offensive rebounds. They were even leading by 4 going into the 4th quarter. It was those 7 turnovers and 14 points that killed their chances of taking a commanding lead.

Now, they must return to Dallas again on Thursday night, battle the momentum and pray that the leagues-best-player version of Lebron James shows face on the court.

The keys to a still-young series.

The Chicago Bulls lead the Miami Heat 1-0 in their Eastern Conference Finals match-up.

A lot of experts and pundits alike picked the Heat to win this series and seemed to be writing off the Bulls' chances before the opening tip. Now, these same people are having to revise their opinions quite drastically after Chicago dished out a 21-point battering on a flat-looking Heat squad.

The Bulls certainly played their best ball of this post-season following on from a high performance in Game 6 of the previous series. However, they won't play quite as well again in this series one would expect as the Bulls' bench brought Chicago an incredible advantage for Game 1.

You could also expect that Lebron James and Dwyane Wade will not combine for only 33 points again in this series, they will both go on to have a huge game themselves that could provide the scoring needed to overcome a smothering Bulls' defense. It's not even like Miami shot poorly (47%), even shooting better than the home team's 43%. It was the rebounding that killed the Heat in this one. Out-rebounded 45-33 in the game, 19-6 on the offensive end. Though rebounding was a major issue for the Heat in the season-series between this pair: 131-99 Bulls in 3 games.

Keys to the Series:

Miami:
1. Limit the Bulls rebounding. Rebounding was the killer in this game and it has been all season against Chicago. Their rebounders need to do a better job of getting themselves between the ball and Bulls' players crashing the boards. Easier said than done, but the Heat went small in Game 1 as Ilgauskas and Dampier weren't even in uniform. Expect at least one of them to be activated for Wednesday night.

2. Get into the paint. Chicago also did a good little number on Wade and James as they struggled to get into the lane for easy points and had to settle for contested jump-shots. Bosh was left alone by his defender and Miami did do a good job of finding him inside.


3. Move the ball. Wade and Lebron tend to play a lot of isolated, 1-vs-1 plays that rely on themselves only. This plays right into the hands of a Bulls defense built on stopping this sort of play. Miami had very few assists and this contributed to their downfall. If they can move the ball more they can move the Bulls out of that defensive shell around the paint, opening up space for Lebron and Wade to get into the paint.

Chicago:
1. Limit Turnovers/fast-break points. If the Bulls hadn't committed 8 first-half turnovers, this game would have been a non-contest at half time. The Heat's offense is unstoppable in the open court, they scored their first 4 points on fast-break dunks that looked to set the tone for a long night for Bulls' fans.


2. If you're name is Rose, get to the rim. Derrick Rose took a lot more jump shots than viewers are used to seeing. He needs to do a better job of getting into the paint. When he gets into the paint, the defense collapses around him and this opens up the outside shooters the Bulls have enough of to be dangerous. Another plus of this defensive collapse is that the Bulls can crash the boards so much easier. Rose also attempted just 6 free-throws although this was a game-high. (Wade and James had 4 each).


3. Get more from Boozer. Boozer may have had a good game on first viewing. 14 points though is not his real level. Luol Deng won't be going off for 21 points every game so Boozer's offense becomes that much more important especially considering the Chicago bench won't be scoring just as much again either.

I still stick by my prediction of the Bulls in 7 as the Heat have enough talent to win at least their home games. I think the Bulls team-oriented style will beat the Heat's individual-oriented style: when James and Wade don't get their points the Heat have very few alternatives to ask to make up the difference.