Shamrock Rovers left back Enda Stevens, who will be joining Aston Villa in January 2012, has been named in the Irish Premier Division Team of the Year and nominated for the Professional Footballers’ Association of Ireland (PFAI) Young Player of the Year award.
21 year old Stevens has remained with Rovers whilst they compete in the Europa League. They currently sit bottom of Group A with ties against Rubin Kazan on November 30th and Tottenham on December 15th left to play.
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I don’t want to enter into a debate about managerial qualities just yet, but if you were screaming out for rotation in the past, you’ve certainly had your fill recently. Last season, Martin O’Neill started just 24 different players in all competitions and received no shortage of criticism, not unfairly in some cases. Just four games into the 2010/11 season and Kevin MacDonald has already used 23 different players in his starting team sheets.
To be fair, MacDonald has
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I don’t know what to say. It looked so good for much of the game, I wrote much of the match report during the game, most of it at half time when it looked bright, then it all fell to pieces in the second half and we’re out. That’s all I have right now, I’ll have to see what I can salvage a little later.
Really, really disappointed. It’s no secret that I really wanted to see us
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Team News Will Appear Here When Available:
Starting XI: Guzan, Cuellar, Collins, Davies, Beye, Reo-Coker, Ireland, Petrov, A Young, Agbonlahor, Heskey.
Subs: Delfouneso, Clark, Lichaj, Bannan, Albrighton, Hogg, Friedel.
Half way through this tie, it’s advantage to Villa and I’m hoping this is going to be a great game. Rapid have to come looking for goals, a goalless draw is no good to them, a 1-1 draw would force extra time, they have to score twice to gain the advantage, but Villa
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Rapid Vienna have issued an official apology to Andreas Weimann and Aston Villa after their fans’ deplorable behaviour during Thursday’s Europa League match, showering him with abuse and drinks as he was stretchered off, clearly in a state of distress.
One of the things I love about being back in Europe, even if it’s just the Europa League, is the exposure to a different set of footballing cultures. I think we were all blown away by the experience in Vienna
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Ardhe Nuhiu 32′ | Barry Bannan 11′
YouTube Video
Job done I think. Just. An away goal could be vital and we learned an awful lot in what turned into a less than an entertaining game after a promising opening 20 minutes or so. Barry Bannan opened the scoring, but Ardhe Nuhiu is being credited with the equaliser with what must be the faintest of touches, fooling Brad Guzan during the first half.
It started extremely brightly, Rapid struggling to cope with the pace and vigour of
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It’s probably fair to say that I underestimated Rapid in last year’s preview, the final sentence in particular was way off the mark. However, they had been struggling up to that point in their season and, having made the group stage, they surprised one or two people in the Europa League too.
They beat Hamburg 3-0 at home in their first group game and then managed a 1-1 draw at Celtic Park. From there, they lost their
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While Stephen Ireland was busy signing his Aston Villa contract, most of his new teammates were travelling to Austria for tomorrow’s Europa League play-off first leg encounter with Rapid Vienna. I think the 20 man squad (16 1st teamers + 4 reserves) caused a few sharp intakes of breath among some Villa fans:-
Goalkeepers
Defenders
Midfielders
Forwards
Brad Friedel
Stephen Warnock
Stewart Downing
Nathan Delfouneso
Brad Guzan
Curtis Davies
Marc Albrighton
Emile Heskey
Elliot Parish
Habib Beye
Nigel Reo-Coker
Andreas Weimann
Eric Lichaj
Isaiah Osbourne
James Collins
Shane Lowry
Barry Bannan
Ciaran Clark
Jonathan Hogg
Nathan Baker
Of the 12 members of the first
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