Paul Collingwood: Beating Australia no longer enough to satisfy England

Paul Collingwood, who became England’s leading one-day run-scorer during the win against Australia in Cardiff on Thursday, believes that the side now hold supremacy over their oldest rivals and can beat any team in the world.

Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain, claimed that “bragging rights” remained with the touring team despite conceding the Ashes to England last year and losing the World Twenty20 final in May. England also hold a 2-0 lead in the NatWest Series going into the third game at Old Trafford tomorrow.

It is a sign of England’s rise that beating Australia is no longer enough, according to Collingwood, who said: “If you look at their record over the past year or so they still have that air of invincibility because they have not lost many games, but we are the better side at the moment.

“We are in a great position to win this series, but we would not just be happy with that. We want to be the best one-day side in the world and win the World Cup next year. We are confident we can beat any team in one-day cricket, not just Australia.”

Collingwood was taken unawares during his innings of 48 at the SWALEC Stadium in Cardiff, when the public address man told the crowd that Alec Stewart’s aggregate of 4,677 runs had been overtaken. “A few Australians were even more surprised than me,” Collingwood said. “Going past Alec’s runs . . . it is all a bit surreal at times.

“I went into that match thinking, ‘I need to start playing well again. I need a bit of confidence.’ Then came that announcement and I thought to myself, ‘Why do you worry so much?’ It is always a battle. What goes on in your head is far more important than anything with your technique.”

That no England batsman has yet hit 5,000 runs when a total of 57 players from other countries have reached the landmark is testament to the relatively low status that the one-day game has carried in this country and the volume of matches elsewhere. Even Andy Flower, the team director, scored 6,786 runs for Zimbabwe.

Collingwood was chatting to Graham Gooch, the part-time batting coach, about this broad issue recently. “In Graham’s day they played three one-day internationals each summer,” Collingwood said. “Now we play three in a week.” This season, England are committed to as many as 13 50-over matches.

Only if Twenty20 squeezes out the longer one-day game will Collingwood’s guess that a good number of England batsmen will overtake his aggregate prove incorrect. Perhaps in a decade’s time, Eoin Morgan will be saying: “In Colly’s era they only played a couple of Twenty20s a year — now we play two a day.”

Collingwood revealed that he underwent two injections in his left shoulder during his rest from the Test series against Bangladesh. He has suffered intermittent pain since dislocating the joint in 2003, but said that he is fit to bowl, even though Andrew Strauss has yet to call upon him in the series.

Source:The Times

Daring Lleyton Hewitt not ready to be the forgotten man

Asked last week to nominate the young British player who most epitomised the attitude required to succeed, Andy Murray said Liam Broady, of Stockport.

The 16-year-old was asked if he would mind hitting for an hour yesterday with Rafael Nadal, the world No 1. “Awesome,” was young Broady’s reaction to the tutorial. John McEnroe has also been trading leftie blows with him this week, offering coaching tips into the bargain.

Broady bears the appearance of a young Lleyton Hewitt, the blond hair, the cap worn backwards and the look in the eye that suggests he is going to make the most of all that he has in the desire to succeed as a professional.

That he was born in the same town as Fred Perry adds to the fascination of the story. That his family does not conform to the strictures preferred of the LTA gentry stirs more piquancy into the pot.

Hewitt has never been a conformist. He has got to this stage of his career by staying loyal to his reactionary roots, a tough-as-old-boots kid whose parents brooked no argument and who still plays every match as if his life depends upon it. He sets Tennis Australia folk on edge, but where would tennis in Australia have been without him to keep it in the mind’s eye this past decade?

On Centre Court yesterday, Hewitt defeated Gaël Monfils, of France, 6-3, 7-6, 6-4, a match defined by the 2002 champion’s refusal to let one of the more volatile characters in the game break the levels of concentration that are his hallmark.

For two sets, Hewitt served out of his skin, dropping just six points before the second-set tie-break, from which he extricated himself after netting three forehands. The Frenchman then became ragged himself. Hewitt took the set with a delightful backhand volley that must have tested his dodgy hips to the utmost.

Before he played in this year’s Australian Open, where he lost in the fourth round to Roger Federer, Hewitt knew that he had to go into hospital for a second hip operation, something he kept from everyone except those nearest and dearest. Typical Hewitt, that.

He did not last more than a couple of rounds in any tournament between then and the French Open, where he took ten games in three sets against Nadal — and that takes some doing. That belief was endorsed in Halle, Germany, the week before last, when he became only the second man in eight years to defeat Federer on grass.

Roger Rasheed, who coached Hewitt for three years before they had a falling-out and is now trying to get the best from Monfils, bore the look of a worried man before the match. He recounted that every time Hewitt came back through the gates of the All England Club, he “was like a kid in a candy store”. And where better than Centre Court to counter someone whose play varies from pearl drop one minute to marshmallow the next.

Source:The Times

Highclere dream factory scales heights

If your business is selling a dream, a little evidence can be persuasive. Harry Herbert had all such material to hand this week, as he launched seven new Highclere Thoroughbred syndicates on the back of an unprecedented three winners at Royal Ascot.

Herbert has managed the prestigious Highclere brand since its inception in 1992 but these are heady days. “We took 50 people into the Ascot winner’s enclosure last week and you can’t buy that experience,” he said.

Plans for the winning horses are taking shape, with Harbinger set to run in the King George, Approve in the Gimcrack and Memory at Newmarket’s July meeting. But Herbert is now selling shares in the yearlings he will seek to buy at the upcoming autumn sales and dispatch to some of the ten trainers on the Highclere roster.

“It’s not easy to keep attracting new owners,” he said. “That’s why success at Ascot was so important. It’s a very public thing — if you have a share in a runner there, all your friends and family will know about it, good or bad.

“We’ve had some amazing times, notably with Lake Coniston and Petrushka. A couple of years ago, we had an Ascot double with Collection and Colony but this year was better.”

Herbert fronts a slick operation that appeals to a surprisingly wide range. “With Highclere, our celebrity element does help. When people see Liz Hurley and Sir Alex Ferguson involved, they might look at us more closely,” he said.

Such inspection reveals that this is not the exclusive enclave of the wealthy that many imagine. Twenty shares in the Masquerade syndicate, which owns Memory and another horse, cost less than £12,000, all training fees included. “We probably created the image ourselves, because we are a luxury goods product,” Herbert admitted. “There are still people who think it’s a private club for the posh but we’re getting over that now. We have a terrific cross-section and horses bond people together.”

Mike Tindall, the England rugby international, has a share in Theology and was on the phone from Australia after his run in the Queen’s Vase at Ascot. “I had to tell him he’d been beaten a nose,” Herbert said. “But he’s keen and calls a lot when he’s away on tour.”

Jeremy Noseda, trainer of Theology, has been chosen to handle a horse in a new Highclere syndicate — 20 shares in a single horse at £6,950 each. Though it is called The Starter syndicate, it is not entirely for newcomers — the name relates to a Spy cartoon hanging in the Jockey Club Rooms, the base for fortnightly Highclere dinners through the spring.

With 19 wins and £369,000 in prize money banked, Highclere are heading for a record season. That would be assured if Harbinger repels Workforce, his Derby-winning stablemate, in the King George. “I’m about to chat it through with Sir Michael Stoute,” Herbert said. “Unless he has a compelling reason not to run, we will go there — it’s the sort of race we are all in this for.”

Source:The Times

Michael Schumacher’s return heads for dead end

Michael Schumacher’s much-heralded return to Formula One could end after only a year, according to reports in Valencia in the build-up to tomorrow’s European Grand Prix.

Although Mercedes GP said last night that there was “absolutely no truth” in the report that dissatisfaction with — and criticism of — the seven-times world champion’s performances had culminated in the team apparently courting Robert Kubica from Renault, an Italian website said that the Pole, 25, had been offered a three-year retainer from 2011, with an option for a further two years.

While rumours and gossip are part and parcel of pitlane life, speculation about Schumacher’s future has been rife and the 41-year-old is an increasingly forlorn figure. He returned to the sport on a three-year contract this season, having delayed his initial comeback because of a neck injury.

Schumacher’s frustration, however, has become increasingly evident. He has not made the podium and his best position has been fourth in both the Spanish and Turkish Grands Prix. It was in Canada two weeks ago that the professional criticisms started.

Increasingly, he has the look and manner of a champion who cannot understand his inability to recapture his glory days. This week he railed at suggestions that he is not the force of old. “I don’t think there are many guys around the world who, at 41, come back after a three-year break and compete at this high a level,” he said.

“I’ve not lost my knowledge of driving. I know what I’m doing and I think I do it to the best I can. When I won 91 grands prix and seven championships, I was thinking then about how I can improve, as I’m doing now.”

Nico Rosberg, who was quickest in yesterday’s first practice session, defended his team-mate, as did Nick Fry, the Mercedes chief executive.

“From inside the team we see things in a totally different perspective,” Fry said. “We’re very comfortable with Michael’s performance and I can’t see any reason why he won’t come good.”

But Lewis Hamilton, the McLaren driver who leads the drivers’ championship by three points and is going for a hat-trick of wins, has suggested that time has moved on more quickly than Schumacher, who was only eleventh- quickest after the second practice session, may have appreciated.

“His commitment is the same as always,” Hamilton said. “But it is so challenging, so close, it is very difficult to outdo the youngsters that have the hunger that he had when he started.”

Now or never for the ‘golden generation’

England expects. Even that two-word affirmation carries more than an echo of the military past that sadly seems to permeate so much discussion before a World Cup encounter with Germany, but it is true. England expects.

The players expect, too. The nucleus of thirtysomethings and late twentysomethings within Fabio Capello’s squad has never, in the players’ lifetimes, known anything but misery at the hands of German opponents in the knockout stages of leading tournaments, from the early memories of the 1990 World Cup to the Euro ’96 defeat that came as many of them were taking their first steps towards stardom. But they maintain that, in the unlikely setting of Bloemfontein tomorrow afternoon, it will be different.

It would not be hard, on the basis of performances in this World Cup, to dismiss England as dysfunctional no-hopers and Germany, with the beguiling young talents of Thomas Müller and Mesut Özil, as one of the top four teams in the tournament, along with Argentina, Brazil and Holland.

So why does it feel, after England scraped into the knockout stages with downbeat draws against the United States and Algeria and a fairly prosaic victory over Slovenia, that this is England’s turn to overcome Germany?

Joe Cole predicted something similar the other day, saying pointedly that “I feel this is our time”, and it was an attitude reinforced yesterday by David James as the goalkeeper shrugged at the mention of Özil, apologised to a German journalist that his “name-recollection skills are next to disgraceful” and proceeded to declare:

“I genuinely think we’re going to win because I think we’re a better team than Germany.”

A better team? This is highly debatable, given that Capello’s side have hardly resembled a cohesive unit since a resounding 5-1 victory over Croatia last September, whereas a young Germany team have developed the “Teamgeist”, or spirit, that comes from having six members of the squad that won the European Under-21 Championship in highly impressive style in Sweden last summer.

England were the team they beat in the final — Özil running the show during a magnificent 4-0 victory — but only two players, Joe Hart and James Milner, have made the step up to Capello’s squad.

There are plenty of reasons to be fearful for the long-term future of England, with Capello reflecting the reluctance of many Barclays Premier League managers to make any commitment to blooding young talent.

Capello’s 23-man squad is the oldest in this World Cup, with an average age of 28 years and six months and with only six players under the age of 27. By contrast, Joachim Löw, the Germany coach, has named a squad with an average age of 25 years and three months, with 18 of their 23 players under the age of 27 — among them the Bayern Munich trio of Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Lukas Podolski, who have a combined total of 221 caps.

Under-fire Alex Bogdanovic bites back at critics

Say the name “Alex Bogdanovic” in British tennis circles and what you get in return is a communal shaking of heads, shrugging of shoulders and exaggerated sighs.

Until yesterday, Bogdanovic has rarely said anything worth printing, but he came out swinging when the subject of his place in the system was raised at another domestic tournament that he departed without troubling the scorers.

What sparked the 26-year-old left-hander into a vitriolic attack against the LTA was the fact that he has been dropped from its matrix funding group for 2010 and, having made it plain that he did not want to play in the Davis Cup tie against Turkey next month, he was told his punishment would be to forfeit any wild-card privileges this summer.

Some might say that it is about time. Bogdanovic’s shortcomings were once more crystallised at the AEGON Championships at Queen’s Club, West London, when he ought to have seen that Grigor Dimitrov, the 19-year-old Bulgarian, was as tight as a drum on the verge of a first-round victory but mistrusted his own talents and lost 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. It is the story of his career.Many more coaches than Tito Vasquez, Peter Lundgren and Brad Gilbert (he was Bogdanovic’s companion for a brief period after parting with Andy Murray, but uniquely ran out of things to say) have sought and failed to work out why this man of such intrinsic gifts cannot summon the power to use them.

That he has earned $620,000 (about £430,000) in prize money owes much to funding that allowed him to travel extensively and the feather-bedding effect of eight wild cards into Wimbledon, on which the return has been eight first-round defeats.

When Bogdanovic told Leon Smith, the new Davis Cup captain, that he preferred to work on his own game and not be considered for the Europe/Africa Zone group II tie, the LTA’s hackles were raised. The decision to slash Bogdanovic’s funding was made as the domestic game’s governing body said it was resolving to make every effort to keep players in the game longer by making up shortfalls in any money they might earn. How much more of a mixed message could it send?

“The reason Steve Martens [the LTA player director] gave for cutting my funding is that I wasn’t working hard enough through the year, my intensity wasn’t enough and that is just so disrespectful and very untrue,” Bogdanovic said. “He only saw me play twice the whole year and he shouldn’t put my efforts down.

“I’m out there giving it my best shot to break into the top 100 [he is No 166 and has never been higher than No 108] and if it was easy, everyone would be as good as Andy Murray is. I found out they didn’t believe in me any more, so the only thing I can do is go out there and try to improve.”

Murray once felt that Bogdanovic was his natural singles companion in the Davis Cup, but his own presence against Turkey is not certain. The paradox is that Judy, his mother — who was courtside to watch the defending champion’s 7-6, 6-3 victory over Iván Navarro, of Spain, yesterday — is working as part of the team, giving a tactical insight into the opposition, pinpointing patterns of play and strengths and weaknesses that she will package on a DVD for team meetings.

Judy was instrumental in providing such information when her sons, Andy and Jamie, were in their developmental stage and says that tactical analysis is what she loves to do.

It would have been fun had she had a word with Andy yesterday before he played Navarro, who consistently made life uncomfortable for the No 3 seed for long spells.

Indeed, Murray, sporting a colourful support around his right knee, had to fight off two set points in the first set tie-break before securing a third-round place against Mardy Fish, the American, or Santiago Giraldo, from Colombia.

Source:The Times

Prince Khalid Abdullah forms strong squad for Royal Ascot

Leading owner will have fancied runners in several of next week’s big races, including Manifest, trained by Henry Cecil

Prince Khalid Abdullah has a clear lead in the owners’ table after the Derby success of Workforce and the Saudi patron has bright prospects of advancing those gains at Royal Ascot next week.

Abdullah has fancied runners in four of the seven championship races — notably Manifest and Showcasing, who head advance betting for the Gold Cup and Golden Jubilee Stakes respectively. André Fabre is likely to send Byword over from France to join Twice Over in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes, while Zacinto adds depth to what promises to be a vintage renewal of the Queen Anne Stakes.

The back-up team is also strong. Principal Role is earmarked for the Ribblesdale Stakes, Redwood holds the Hardwicke Stakes entry while Timepiece, who finished unplaced in the Investec Oaks, is likely to drop back to a mile for the Sandringham Stakes. However, Special Duty, the dual classic winner, is expected to bypass the Coronation Stakes in favour of the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket next month.

Zacinto faces a daunting assignment in the opening race of the five-day meeting when he confronts Goldikova, Rip Van Winkle and Paco Boy over the straight mile. The four-year-old chased home Rip Van Winkle in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot in September but has since run disappointingly in the Breeders’ Cup Mile and the Lockinge Stakes won by Paco Boy last month.Nevertheless, connections believe Zacinto deserves his place in Queen Anne field. “He was not quite right after his Breeders’ Cup run and he was in an uncharacteristically bad frame of mind before the Lockinge,” Lord Grimthorpe, racing manager for Abdullah, said yesterday.

“He has since behaved much better at home, and the Queen Anne Stakes would obviously be a good race to win.”

Manifest and Showcasing approach their respective races on the back of encouraging runs last time. “Manifest is relatively untried for his age,” Grimthorpe said of the four-year-old. “As with most horses going for the Gold Cup, we don’t know whether he will stay two-and-a-half miles but the further he goes, the better he looks.”

Showcasing, for his part, finished strongly when conceding weight in the Duke Of York Stakes last month. “He started slightly slowly at York but he rallied well from that,” Grimthorpe said. “We were very pleased with the way he came home.”

Byword is a fascinating candidate for the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes on Wednesday. The winner of four of his seven races, he beat all bar Goldikova in the nine-furlong Prix d’Ispahan last month, when he drew ten lengths clear of the third, German Derby winner Wiener Walzer. “It was a good effort from Byword and the extra furlong at Ascot will suit him,” Grimthorpe said.

Workforce lost just 9lb in winning the Derby but connections feel that the colt must have given his all to shatter the track record. Grimthorpe said: “It was always the plan to go on to the Irish Derby, but we weren’t quite expecting to see what we saw from him at Epsom.

“He must have had a hard race, so Ireland [on June 27] might come too soon. At this stage it is more likely he will go straight to the King George, but all options remain open. We will know a lot more in a week’s time. He didn’t lose that much weight, so on the face of it, he has taken the Derby well.”

Meanwhile, Aviate, much fancied for the Oaks before finishing seventh, is to be given a short break after the daughter of Dansili failed to stay. But Abdullah, who has won three classics this season, has another live hope in Deluxe, who contests the Prix de Diane [French Oaks] on Sunday.

Source:The Times

Justin Rose fails to qualify for US Open

The world’s leading players will assemble for the US Open at Pebble Beach next week but Justin Rose, bizarrely, will not be among them.

Rose won the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village, in Dublin, Ohio, on Sunday evening and in so doing moved to No 33 in the world rankings — a position that a few weeks earlier would have guaranteed the Englishman a spot in the second major championship of the season.

The problem for Rose was that when the cut-off point arrived, he was outside the all-important top 50 who gain automatic entry and had to try his hand at a 36-hole qualifying tournament the day after he had lifted one of golf’s most coveted trophies.

His energy spent, Rose was always going to be up against it in a 59-man field that was chasing three places at the event in Springfield, Ohio. He kept his concentration in a first round of 68, but a 72 in the second round left him well off the pace.It was a situation similar to that of Simon Khan, who won the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth three weeks ago. He, too, fell short in a 36-hole qualifier at Walton Heath the next day. There is a strong case to suggest that winners of such prestigious tournaments should be given an exemption into championships such as the US Open.

There was good cheer, meanwhile, for two of Rose’s compatriots. Brian Davis continued his good form by winning the qualifier with rounds of 67 and 64, and Matthew Richardson, a former Walker Cup player, came through to qualify at another event in Portland, Oregon.

Davis and Richardson will line up alongside former Open champions Tom Lehman and Ben Curtis, Davis Love and German Alex Cejka when the US Open gets underway next Thursday.

Richardson, who had already come through local qualifying, fired rounds of 68 and 69 to finish three behind Canadian winner Kent Eger. It will not be his first major - he played all four rounds of the 2005 Open at St Andrews during his career as an amateur.

Corey Pavin, the US Ryder Cup captain, missed out on qualification and another notable absentee will be Tom Kite, who won the US Open when it was staged at Pebble Beach in 1992.

Source:The Times

Mark Webber extends Red Bull contract

Mark Webber has signed a one-year extension to his contract with Red Bull.

The deal means the 33-year-old Australian, the current championship leader, will remain with the team next season, which will be his fifth since joining them in 2007. His team-mate Sebastian Vettel is also signed for 2011. The two drivers controversially collided when Webber was leading the Turkish Grand Prix last week.

“It was an easy decision to remain with Red Bull Racing,” Webber said. “We began talking very early this year and were in a position to sign by the Barcelona Grand Prix.

“The decision to extend for a further year was a mutual one; it’s widely know that I’m not interested in hanging around in Formula One just for the sake of it and at this stage of my career, I’m happy to take one year at a time.“I continue to feel very comfortable here - I have a fantastic relationship with the whole team and the factory at Milton Keynes feels like home.

“It’s been incredible to be part of the team as it’s moved forward from a mid-field competitor to one that is challenging for the championship. I hope we experience more success together in the future and achieve our ultimate goal of winning the world championship.”

Webber has won the Spanish and Monaco grands prix this year, his first victories in F1, and leads the drivers’ championship standings by five points from defending champion Jenson Button of McLaren.

“The decision to retain Mark was very straightforward,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner added: “He is an important member of our team and is currently in the best form of his career, as the current leader of the drivers’ championship.

“The team is extremely happy that the driver pairing of Mark and Sebastian will remain unchanged for a third season in 2011.”

Source:The Times

Kenny Dalglish is willing to take charge at Liverpool

Kenny Dalglish is willing to replace Rafael Benítez as Liverpool manager — but only if the Anfield board considers him to be the best possible replacement for the Spaniard.

Dalglish, who resigned as Liverpool manager in 1991 before returning to the club last year in a new ambassador’s role, had been asked to help Christian Purslow, the managing director, to find a successor to Benítez, who left last Thursday by mutual consent.

Benítez was confirmed last night as the new coach of Inter Milan, where he will succeed José Mourinho.

However, Dalglish has told friends that he would like the job, although he is not willing to compromise the club in any way by making his interest in the position known.

Roy Hodgson is the early front-runner to take over at Anfield, with Liverpool understood to be preparing an approach for the Fulham manager.

But Dalglish, who won three league titles during his six-year spell in charge from 1985, believes he has the credentials and the standing within the club to take on the job for a second time.

Such a move would undoubtedly be popular with supporters, who view Dalglish as a legend, but whether the Liverpool hierarchy believe the 59-year-old is ready to make what would be an emotional return to the dugout, despite not having managed at the top level for almost a decade, is open to question.

Dalglish is unlikely to put pressure on the club he served as player and manager by publicly declaring his interest, but he will inform Purslow and his fellow board members of his belief that he can do the job if called upon. He can do so in the confidence that few, if any, of the contenders to succeed Benítez can boast such an impressive CV and that none of them can match the depth of his association with Liverpool.

Dalglish has always maintained that he would be ready and willing to help Liverpool in any way should the club call upon his services, but the present situation is complicated by the fact that he is not on the shortlist that is being considered and he would have to forgo his role on the selection panel for that to change.

Inter confirmed that Benítez will take over as manager of the European champions. “We have reached an agreement and we have sorted out all the last remaining details,” Massimo Moratti, the president, said. “Tomorrow we will announce when Benítez will be unveiled to the press.”

Source:The Times

Rivals beginning to circle after Chelsea release Joe Cole and Michael Ballack

Chelsea will confirm today the imminent departures of Joe Cole and Michael Ballack on free transfers after the pair failed to agree new contracts at Stamford Bridge.

The club have been negotiating for several months with the players’ representatives over extensions to contracts that expire this summer, but have been unable to agree terms and the players will leave as free agents on July 1.

Chelsea’s surprise announcement will spark a scramble for their signatures as, despite falling out of favour in West London, both players are very much in demand. Cole recovered from a disappointing domestic season to earn a place in England’s World Cup squad and is in contention to start their opening match of the tournament, against the United States on Saturday, while Ballack would have been in South Africa as Germany captain had he not injured his ankle in Chelsea’s FA Cup Final win over Portsmouth.

Cole has attracted strong levels of interest from Chelsea’s leading rivals in the Premier League, with Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur set to follow up their initial inquiries. Given Cole’s desire to stay in London and the appeal of being reunited with Harry Redknapp, White Hart Lane appears to be his most likely destination because Tottenham, unlike Arsenal and Liverpool, would have little problem matching his wage demands. An offer to work with Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford would, however, be hard to turn down.

Ballack will leave England after four seasons at Chelsea. He, too, will have no shortage of suitors. Werder Bremen have made clear their desire to bring him back to Germany and José Mourinho’s agent, Jorge Mendes, has contacted his representatives to examine the possibility of Ballack joining Real Madrid. Several wealthy clubs in the United Arab Emirates Pro League are also preparing to make him an offer.

Cole’s future at Chelsea looked bleak for most of the season, with contract talks breaking down after Christmas. Cole had been holding out for a £20,000-a-week pay rise to £100,000, but Chelsea refused to budge, to such an extent that the initial offer of £85,000 a week was withdrawn.

Ballack, 33, was seeking a new two-year contract that would enable him to play on at the highest level until the 2012 European Championship, an even more important aspiration after missing the World Cup finals, whereas Chelsea were willing to give him only another year. He offered to take a big pay cut and make the second year contingent upon him playing a large number of games next season, but Chelsea refused to back down.

Source:The Times