Premiership Transfer Window Review - Part Three

david Walker completes his review of the January transfer window and how the moves will impact each teams success, or survival at the end of the 2005/06 season.

Portsmouth

If ever there was a manager who enjoyed a bit of business during the January transfer window it was Harry Redknapp. He is running out of time to form a team capable of keeping Pompey in the top flight after 34 players have come and gone this season.

He has brought in 4.1 million Auxerre striker Benjamin Mwaruwari to try and fill the void left by Yakubu while midfield steel and creativity should come in the form of Tottenham trio Pedro Mendes, Sean Davies and Wayne Routledge. Noe Pamarot, also of Spurs, Ognjen Koroman and goalkeeper Dean Kiely will assist defensive duties.

The most intriguing of Redknapps dealings is the loan capture of Andres DAllesandro, once tipped to be the next big thing out of south America. However, his career stalled following a move to Wolfsburg two and a half years ago.

Pompey are second from bottom in the table and lie five points from safety. The bookmakers dont fancy their chances of survival and quote 4/9 on relegation and 13/8 on staying up.

Sunderland

Sunderland are rooted firmly to the bottom of the table with just nine points from 23 matches and nine points adrift of nearest rivals Portsmouth.

The Black Cats are without a home win all season and have won just twice in their last 44 premiership matches stretching back to a previous stint. Such dire form has made Mick McCarthys side a relegation certainty with odds of 1/1000 being offered.

However, if you believe in miracles, Sunderland are 100/1 to stage the comeback of all comebacks and remain in the premiership for next season.

Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs have been the surprise package of the season thus far and maintain their fourth place position in the premiership despite a run of three matches without victory and an FA Cup exit at the hands of Leicester City.

Manager Martin Jol signed Egyptian midfielder Hossam Ghali from Feyenoord and Charlton Athletics Danny Murphy. Even though Spurs are four points and two places above north London rivals Arsenal the bookmakers do not rate them as highly in the without Chelsea market, pricing the White Hart Lane outfit up at 66/1.

West Bromwich Albion

West Brom are staring at a fight against relegation for the second successive season but have proved they have the stomach for the battle once before. Out of the bottom seven sides in the premiership the Baggies have won the most home matches which will give manager Bryan Robson optimism.

Nigel Quashie arrived in a 1.5 million deal from Southampton while Jan Kozak and williams martinez joined on loan from Artmedia Bratislava and Defensor respectively. Last seasons top goalscorer Robert Earnshaw was allowed to leave for Norwich in a 3.5 million deal. The Baggies are available at 4/5 for relegation but a better bet may be for them to stay up at Evens.

West Ham United

The largest deal of the transfer window was Dean Ashtons 7.25 million arrival from Norwich City. Following his seven goals last season for the Canaries, then fighting a losing battle against premiership relegation, Ashton is seen as the man who can fire West Ham into europe this term.

Another striker, Yaniv Katan, joined from Maccabi Haifa for 100,000 while Deportivo defender Lionel Scaloni has signed a loan deal with the club. If you are fond of speculative punts, striker Marlon Harewood, with six goals in his last 12 premiership matches, is available at 40/1 to top the premiership goal scoring charts at the end of the season.

Wigan Athletic

Wigan have had a remarkable first season in the premiership. They are fifth in the table, one place above former Champions Arsenal, just three points adrift of a Champions League spot and a place in the Carling Cup final secured.

Paul Jewell has worked wonders at the JJB Stadium and it is not surprising chairman Dave Whelan has sanctioned a 2 million move for Brann defender Paul Scharner, the free transfer of midfielder david Thompson and loan arrivals for Liverpools Neil Mellor and Tottenham Hotspurs Reto Ziegler.

It would be foolish to bet against the Latics qualifying for europe next season but at present they are the only side in the top 10 with a minus goal difference. They are 300/1 outsiders to win the premiership in the without Chelsea market.

Yoga Teacher Training On Line

Is it Possible to Play Better Golf With No Practice?

I, like most golfers, am always looking to play better, beat my mates and get bragging rights. I have a lifestyle that is pretty hectic and spend a lot of time with my family. I have two boys and we are a soccer mad family. I coach one of my boys teams and my other son plays twice a week as well. So you can see I don't get any time to perfect my golf at all.

Recently I have been managing about a game every 4 weeks and absolutely no practice, so I have been in search of a way to help me enjoy my game with no practice, so I researched and investigated and came up with 2 things that I could do with out too much bother.

1. Course management
2. Pitching and chipping strategy

Course management I decided that I would concentrate on choosing the right kind of shot at the right time, then I would definitely get better scores. The golf course that I play at has loads of bunkers on every green, and I figured that if I went for the green with my approach shots that I would either be on the green or in a bunker. Now depending on how far out from the green I was also had a bearing on my shot. I decided that for any shot requiring more than a 9 iron I would actually play short/lay up and take my chances with my chipping and putting. As part of that decision process was also where to lay up to to give me the best angle to chip on to the green.

So my simple course management technique was really to avoid the bunkers at all costs and give myself a chance of an up and down from a green side chip.

Unless you can hit the ball from where you are onto the green at least 7 times out of 10 then you would be better off playing short.

Pitching and chipping Strategy

I read the following tip recently

"You can vary the distance of your chips by using different clubs - try using your 5 iron, 7 iron or 9 iron and only ONE SWING instead of using your Sand Wedge and 3 different swings."

Basically, the secret is to have the same length backswing, but use a different club to ship the ball either longer or shorter, and I adapted it to have two swings.

Well that made sense to me so before my round started, I thought I would do a little scientific research, so I went to the practice area and played chips with 2 different swings

Swing #1 Take the club back about 18 inches behind my back foot. The key is to go back the same distance every time

Swing #2 Takes the club back parallel to the ground

I spent 15 minutes testing out how far the ball went with each club using swing number 1 from my 5 iron up to my lob wedge to get a feel for the distance covered in the air and the total distance I then repeated the exercise using swing number 2 I also used a simple setup routine for chipping and putting (you can get this set up routine from my website TheGolfHelper.com

Now I didn't change any other part of my game, and just applying these simple methods improved my game without any practice (well actually about 15 minutes practice on the chipping range!)

As I said before these 2 things were the key to me winning our club A grade competition, and all done with 2 very simple techniques that anyone can do without remodeling your swing or taking a lesson, so that should give you some food for thought!

If you want to discover the simple set up routine that I used, simply go to my web site and See my review of The Simple Golf Swing Review

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