While Cristiano Ronaldo has scored three times in the Premier League since rejoining Man United, Lionel Messi is still waiting for his first Ligue 1 goal after PSG suffered a shock first defeat of the season on Sunday.
Luckless Messi hit the woodwork for the third time this season as PSG’s previously perfect record evaporated at Rennes, where a 45th-minute Gaetan Laborde goal was followed by Flavien Tait’s a minute after the break to leave the Argentina captain and feted strike partners Kylian Mbappe and Neymar shellshocked.
Despite scoring his first goal for the club with a stunning strike in the 2-0 win over Manchester City at the Parc des Princes in the Champions League on Tuesday, marquee signing Messi has failed to notch in all three of his appearances in a league that is often deemed considerably weaker than La Liga, in which Messi became Barcelona’s top scorer of all time.
Mbappe went a sixth game without joining the scoresheet and Neymar has not netted in four matches, although neither forward’s record is likely to be compared quite as closely as Messi’s to the five goals in six appearances already racked up by Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United this season.
PSG thought they had pulled a goal back when Mbappe hit the net midway through the second half, only for his effort to be ruled out.
Matters almost worsened for Paris when Rennes, who finished the day seventh in the table, appeared to have been awarded a penalty in the 81st minute, only for the decision to be overturned.
“Without underestimating what Rennes have done, we are frustrated and disappointed not to have transformed our chances and to concede these goals,” said PSG boss Mauricio Pochettino afterwards, admitting to being “a bit” angry. “These situations leave us bitter and disappointed.
“What we did for 25 minutes was of very good quality. We must be able to extend that for 90 minutes.
“The psychological impact of both goals, coming at key moments was significant. I am satisfied in one sense: we have created a lot of situations and opportunities.”
Brazil talisman Neymar was substituted during the second half, and Pochettino again fielded questions about the risk of creating a detrimentally top-heavy team when his most formidable front three start games together.
“I don’t think we can analyze the result in relation to a system,” he replied. “On other occasions, such as [in the wins against] Lyon or Manchester City, this should not affect the analysis.
“We played our best 25, 30 minutes of the season. When you win against Manchester City, it’s a collective question there, too. The first person [to take responsibility] is me.”
Pochettino’s side are six points clear of Lens at the top of the table ahead of the visit of Angers on October 15.
Former UFC champion Miesha Tate didn’t hold back in her scolding of Aspen Ladd after she failed to make weight ahead of an ultimately canned fight against Macy Chiasson, accusing the bantamweight of ‘cheating’ at the weigh-in.
Ladd, who is ranked third in the UFC’s female 135lbs fold, initially failed to make weight for the fight while still fully-clothed, which prompted her to try again without clothing behind the UFC’s so-called ‘privacy box’ – with Ladd stepping on and off the scales several times before ultimately weighing in a full pound over the allowed limit for a non-title fight.
What was more concerning, though, was the manner in which Ladd appeared to struggle, with the 26-year-old appearing very unsteady on her feet and coming close to losing her balance.
Video footage of Ladd’s struggles quickly circulated on social media, receiving concern from fans and media alike, and eventually leading to the UFC cancelling the fight entirely.
Ladd later blamed her failed weigh-in on her period, and wrote on Instagram afterwards that she was uneasy because she didn’t want to “bleed in front of the media“.
Former UFC champ Tate, though, isn’t buying it and wrote in a social media post of her own that she suspected Ladd was cheating on the scales by attempting to disguise her true weight.
“It’s one thing to miss weight; it’s another thing to try and cheat the scale and use every excuse in the book to not weigh in properly,” Tate alleged on Twitter.
It’s one thing to miss weight, it’s another thing to try and cheat the scale and use every excuse in the book to not weigh in properly. Everyone saw you cheat and still came in a lb over. I bet you were every bit of 139. https://t.co/VyOWcfTMCv
“Everyone saw you cheat and still came in a lb over. I bet you were every bit of 139.”
Tate’s allegations appear to reference some of the darker arts of fight weigh-ins, where some cases have been noted where fighters removed certain parts of their body from the weighing scales, or grabbed on to a towel for leverage – further disguising their true weight.
“Guaranteed she didn’t want to put both hands up because she wanted to grab the curtain structure placed around her. Nice try,” added Tate.
However, one member of Ladd’s entourage wasn’t accepting ‘Cupcake’s’ analysis of events.
Please try and stand still, with hands in the air while dehydrated, dizzy, and nauseous all while trying to hold yourself because you are bleeding. You better hope you never have to fight Aspen. Oh wait you probably won’t you coward
“Please try and stand still, with hands in the air while dehydrated, dizzy, and nauseous all while trying to hold yourself because you are bleeding,” wrote Ladd’s coach, Jim West, in response. “You better hope you never have to fight Aspen. Oh wait, you probably won’t – you coward.”
Tate, who has been linked to a fight with Ladd, made her return to MMA in July with a win against Marion Reneau, some five years after announcing her retirement from the sport following defeat to Raquel Pennington in New York.
She was scheduled to fight Ketlyn Vieira this month but the fight was pushed into November after Tate tested positive for Covid-19.
Nine-time Australian Open champ Novak Djokovic has been warned that his winner’s medals won’t protect him from Covid-19 as organizers of the 2022 tournament say there will be ‘no exceptions’ for vaccine hesitant players.
The Serbian great continues to chase the record for the most titles in the men’s game but hopes of him carving out his own piece of history at next year’s tournament have been thrown into doubt after it was announced that only vaccinated players will be permitted entry to the country ahead of the tournament, which is due to begin in January.
Djokovic is tied with both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal as having recorded 20 Grand Slam wins apiece – but Djokovic’s repeated dominance in Australia, where he has won three straight championships, is thought by many to be an advantage over his rivals when it comes to breaking the record.
In order for that to become a reality, Djokovic must be double-jabbed against Covid-19 – something that he has expressed reservations over in the past.
“[Grand slam] titles won’t protect you,” Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said to reporters when asked about Djokovic’s stance on the vaccine.
“The only title that will protect you is you being able to have had your first dose and second dose.
“Logic and numerous conversations with the Prime Minister [Scott Morrison] tell me that if you are an Australian citizen, you will be allowed home if you haven’t had the jab.
“But if you’re coming on a tourist visa or a business visa, so you’re not an Aussie – you are coming to visit – the notion of you getting in here without being vaccinated, I think, is very, very low.”
The vaccine mandates are thought to have caused concern not just for some players but for organizers also. According to The Age, Australian Open chief Craig Tiley has expressed his concern that any harsh regulations being imposed on the players could force many of them to withdraw and lead to a watered-down version of the event.
Tiley’s fears were dismissed by the state government, according to reports.
A Polish champion figure skater who changed her citizenship to Poland in 2019 has claimed that Russian bosses “wanted to block” her switch despite not giving her a chance to go to a “big competition”.
Moscow-born Ekaterina Kurakova, who has skated to songs by artists including Charlie Chaplin, Janet Jackson and Edith Piaf, started out at CSKA in her original home city before deciding to represent Poland in 2017.
The 19-year-old says that some skaters in Russia retire when they are as young as 16 because of the level of competition – a path she could have gone down because bosses told her directly that she would not be sent to major showpieces.
“I thought I deserved a chance but in Russia they refused to give it to me,” she told Onet, adding that she “believed in myself all the time.”“They didn’t even want to send me to the Junior Grand Prix.”
Kurakova wrote to Polish Figure Skating Association president Marek Kaliszek after meeting him at competition in his country’s city of Torun, with arrangements made for the move which she suggested Russian team leaders had initially sought to thwart.
“They knew that I am a good [athlete], after all, and that I could compete with the girls representing Russia,” she explained.
“But when I applied for a residence card in Poland, there was nothing they could do. Of course, they were not satisfied.
Later basing herself in Toronto, Kurakova admits that some of her new national peers seemed confused by her switch, although two strongly supported her in the country she now sees as home.
“I was on cloud nine and my parents were crying,” she reflected. “But they always supported me because they knew figure skating was my whole life.
“When I was recently [training] in Italy, I missed Poland very much. When I come back to Poland, I feel that this is my home.
“I have a boyfriend here and friends that I just love. In the future, I would rather live in Poland than in Russia.”
Since receiving clearance, Kurakova has lifted the Warsaw Cup, won the Four National Championships for three straight seasons, finished 32nd at this year’s World Championships and earned the second of six spots for the Poland team at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
“Poland has given me a great opportunity for which I am very grateful,” she said. “I am very happy about it – I feel better than ever.
“After all, for two years I could not skate, and now I am promoted to the Olympics in Beijing.
“I knew that Poland would be a good choice because I felt that they really needed me here. And that’s probably the most important thing – to feel needed.”
Mo Salah confirmed his status as one of the world’s great players by starring as Premier League heavyweights Liverpool and Manchester City played out a 2-2 draw after going toe-to-toe in a titanic tussle on Sunday.
It might have taken a while to warm up but when it did, the two teams who have collectively ushered in an era of dominance at the summit of the Premier League table in recent seasons showed exactly why they look like favorites to once again duel for English football’s domestic honors.
You wouldn’t have thought it watching the first half. Both teams struggled to impose themselves throughout a rather turgid opening, with Liverpool being particularly ineffective as reflected by various choruses of groans from the Anfield faithful on occasion.
Guardiola’s City have struggled to find the back of the net on the road so far this season but appeared the more likely of the two to break the deadlock in the opening exchanges – although that would change after the break when Liverpool, and in particular Salah, moved closer to fifth gear.
The impasse was broken when Salah fed Sadio Mane with an exquisite reverse pass for the Senegalese to fire past Ederson on 59 minutes. The advantage wold last for just ten minutes when Phil Foden, who was also excellent, flummoxed the Liverpool backline to find the corner in front of The Kop.
The drama was far from over. Salah made his most significant contribution of the evening on 76 minutes when he turned the City defence inside-out to score a sensational strike into the corner in a goal which sent Jurgen Klopp into a frenzied celebration pitch-side.
7 – Mohamed Salah has now scored in each of his last seven appearances for Liverpool in all competitions, equalling his longest scoring streak for the Reds (last achieved in April 2018). Unstoppable.
A Guardiola team remains dangerous until the end and Liverpool were reminded of this unfortunate reality when Kevin De Bruyne – who else? – shot past Alisson from distance, with the ball deflecting in off an unlucky Joe Gomez.
It was as exciting a match – or second half, to be more specific – as has been seen in the Premier League this season and, after his outstanding performance, the social media plaudits have been winging Salah’s way after he scored in a seventh straight game.
salah is much better than messi let’s not kid ourselves
“Salah is much better than Messi – let’s not kid ourselves,” wrote one fan of the Egyptian’s showing.
“I’d say he’s playing better than Messi right now. Salah, Benzema and Lewandowski are the three at the minute, delivering pretty much every week,” agreed another.
“Don’t let the result hide the fact that Mohamed Salah is the best player in the world,” added a third.
The best of the action from a dramatic afternoon at Anfield, with two fantastic Reds goals cancelled out by Manchester City: pic.twitter.com/b9iujWG5d5
