Fulham manager Roy Hodgson, who had two spells coaching Inter Milan in the Nineties, believes Chelsea"s experience will be a key factor at San Siro tomorrow.
Hodgson knows first-hand the passion generated by Inter fans on European nights but is confident the Chelsea players can handle the atmosphere.
He said: "The good thing is Chelsea have a lot of experience and every one of their players will have played there before, I"m sure. For Carlo Ancelotti it"s a return home.
The edge: Experienced players such as Didier Drogba could be key for Chelsea
"The tie sees the best Italy have to offer and one of England"s best teams. There is a belief the Premier League is better than Serie A but it"s dangerous to say this league is behind that league.
"If you can pan out all the teams in a league and work out how number 12 in Italy would do against number 12 in England it might be easier...but with the very top teams in any of the big European leagues there is very little to choose between them.
Inside knowledge: Roy Hogdson (second right) talks with Inter players (left-right) Gianluca Pagliuca, Ivan Zamorano, and Fabio Galante in 1999
"We saw that last week with AC Milan and Manchester United. It took United a while to get going and they needed a couple of great goals to win the match.
"Inter are a stronger team than Milan, I don"t think anyone would question that. For Chelsea the task of going to San Siro and playing a really strong team is one that will test them."
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Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent, and James Hider in Jerusalem & , : {}
A serious rift in relations between Britain and Israel opened yesterday after a criminal investigation uncovered compelling evidence that Jerusalem had cloned the UK passports used in the assassination of a senior Hamas operative in Dubai.
Britain responded by expelling a senior Israeli diplomat, believed to be the Mossad station chief in London; imposing new travel advice, warning Britons of the threat of state-sponsored identity theft in Israel; and demanding a public assurance that Israel would never misuse British passports again.
Ron Prosor, Israels Ambassador, expressed his disappointment but said he was determined to strengthen the firm foundations of the relationship between Britain and Israel. The froideur only increased, however, when it emerged that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, had cancelled his scheduled attendance at a reception marking the renovation of the Israeli Embassy yesterday.
Instead, Mr Miliband told the Commons of the conclusion of the investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and denounced Israels behaviour as intolerable and displaying a profound disregard for the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.
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The fact that this was done by a country which is a friend, with significant diplomatic, cultural, business and personal ties to the UK, only adds insult to injury, he added. He said he had demanded a formal assurance that the fraud would not recur from Avigdor Liebermann, the Israeli Foreign Minister. The travel advice to be issued to British citizens would depend on the answer that he received.
Diplomatic sources told The Times that the assurance would have to be public in effect, forcing Israel to admit its involvement in the fraud and, by implication, in the assassination of Mahmud al-Mabhuh on January 19.
Suspicions fell on Israels intelligence agency immediately after the killing, but they were reinforced when it emerged that all of the Western passport holders whose identities were used were also Israeli nationals. Mr Miliband said that Soca investigation had lead directly back to Israel and that no other country appeared to have been involved.
Given that this was a very sophisticated operation, in which high-quality forgeries were made, the Government judges it is highly likely that the forgeries were made by a state intelligence service, he said. Taking this, together with other inquiries, we have concluded that there are compelling reasons to believe that Israel was responsible for the misuse of the British passports.
The passports of Irish, German, French and Australian citizens were also used but those countries are yet to conclude their investigations.
Israel said that it regretted the British move to expel the Mossad representative but, while the Government in Jerusalem was measured in its response, MPs from the far Right denounced the British as untrustworthy dogs.
I think the British are behaving hypocritically, Aryeh Eldad, of the National Union, an ultra-nationalist, pro-settler party, told Sky News. Who are they to judge us on the war on terror?
Michael Ben Ari, another National Union MP, said: The British are dogs but they are not loyal to us . This is anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism.
Sir Alex Ferguson has reopened old wounds in the run-up to Sunday"s energetically awaited compare with Liverpool by accusing the FA of stand in standards over their preference not to retaliate Steven Gerrard progressing this week.
The Liverpool captain transient disciplinary action, notwithstanding looming to make use of his forearm to hit Michael Brown to the belligerent in Liverpool"s 4-1 win over Portsmouth on Monday night.
The FA"s preference has angry Manchester United and led to allegations that the FA retaliate Ferguson"s group some-more exceedingly than alternative clubs. The FA discharged those accusations by claiming that it could not action given the arbitrate concerned, Stuart Attwell, has confirmed that Gerrard"s corruption did not consequence a engagement or a red card.
"I didn"t design anything to occur to Steven Gerrard," Ferguson, whose side have a story of new adversary with Liverpool, said. "[The disciplinary panel] is a dysfunctional unit. I don"t know what they are doing.
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"There is no coherence for a begin and I didn"t design to get anything. I am not as well worried about it. They can do what they wish down there. It is funny at times. But I positively think if it was a Manchester United player he would have been done, as was the box with Rio Ferdinand.
"There is zero you can do about it. You only blemish your head, everyone scratches their head at a little of these decisions. But it will regularly be that way. You only blemish your head at a little of the decisions they take and consternation how they came to that decision. It only happens."
Had Gerrard been found guilty of aroused conduct, he would have been criminialized from Liverpool"s tour to Old Trafford on Sunday. Ferguson"s annoy stems often from the actuality that the defender Rio Ferdinand was criminialized for 3 games for overhanging an arm in to the face of Craig Fagan during a 4-0 win opposite Hull City in January.
That low mark was increasing by one compare after Ferdinand appealed. That situation was longed for by the referee, Steve Bennett, who pronounced that he would have shown a red label had he seen it.
In the set up up to Sunday"s match, Ferguson did, however, magnify an olive bend to Rafael Benitez by revelation he feels for the Spaniard after Liverpool"s deteriorate of turmoil.
"Sometimes you rise with a sold group and it is formidable to do it again," Ferguson added. "Everyone approaching Liverpool to do better. But they are not. Their challenge, along with utterly a integrate of others, is to get that fourth spot, that seems to be a joining of the own. The word magnetism is a bit strong, but you feel for any physical education instructor who doesn"t do well.
"Phil Brown was sacked during the week. Yet given the players and intensity of his team, I am not certain any one approaching that Hull would be in anything alternative than a dog-fight this season. It happens each season. It is not something new."
Ferguson was handed a little great headlines yesterday, however, when Owen Hargreaves reported no ill goods following his haven group tour for United opposite Burnley, his initial rival football given Sep 2008 after surgery to heal tendonitis in both knees. Hargreaves played 45 mins in the diversion and Ferguson said: "Owen done his quip that is a big progress for the boy. We"re gay for him, he has been out a year and a half and it has been really formidable for him.
"The experience we have had of Gary Neville entrance behind after not personification for a prolonged interlude will be beneficial and Gary has valid and shown that you can come behind from this sort of damage and Owen has the value of being a younger man.
"Hopefully, he is behind for a long, one after another duration now. I think he"ll need a integrate games some-more in the pot but by that time he should be behind in the initial group squad. And he is a great one to get behind at this time in the season."
Staff at John Lewis Partnership are to share a reward remuneration of 151.3 million, after the sell organisation reported a 9.7 per cent climb in full year pre-tax increase to 306.6 million.
It equates to that "partners", as staff at the tradesman are designated, will embrace payouts homogeneous to fifteen per cent of their annual salary, or scarcely eight weeks" pay.
Charlie Mayfield, authority of the John Lewis Partnership, pronounced that, in all, about 70,000 partners would embrace payouts.
He said: Partners have shown extensive joining during becoming different times. I am thus gay that the partners will share sincerely in the financial rewards of a successful year.
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Star actor at the Partnership was Waitrose, the supermarket chain, that lifted handling distinction prior to skill gains by 26.8 per cent to 268.2 million.
At John Lewis, the UKs greatest dialect store operator, handling increase prior to skill gains were up by a some-more medium fifteen per cent to 165.9 million.
Mr Mayfield pronounced that Waitrose had done huge swell during the year, in that it non-stop twenty-five new shops, of that thirteen were acquired from the Co-op after the latters takeover of Somerfield as well as one former Woolworths store.
He pronounced that Waitrose had non-stop dual new stores in 2010 and programmed twenty others the year ahead, formulating 2,500 jobs in the process.
Mr Mayfield pronounced that the store openings, along with the launch of necessary Waitrose, the bondage worth brand, that distinguished the initial anniversary on Wednesday, had done the code some-more permitted to some-more commercial operation in some-more tools of the United Kingdom.
He added: Each week up to 400,000 some-more people are right away selecting to emporium at Waitrose.
Mr Mayfield pronounced that, after a formidable commencement to 2009, the John Lewis stores had emerged strenuously from the recession.
He pronounced the commercial operation had been increasing by new store openings, together with the dilettante "John Lewis at Home" judgment at Poole, Dorset, and the new emporium at Cardiff, the bondage second-largest, that non-stop in Sep and took John Lewis in to Wales for the initial time.
He pronounced that an additional "At Home" store was programmed for Croydon, Surrey, and that the new emporium at the Olympic site in Stratford, East London, was set to open subsequent year.
He added: We sojourn committed to the plans for full-line dialect stores in Northern Ireland and Dublin, and go on to try possibilities in key city centres in England.
Mr Mayfield pronounced that, during the initial five weeks of the new financial year, that began on 31 January, sum sales were 13.5 per cent higher than the same duration last year.
He pronounced like-for-like sales, that embody usually stores trade in the same format for some-more than a year, were up by 2.8 per cent at Waitrose and by 14.9 per cent at John Lewis.
But he warned: We expect some-more severe trade conditions in 2010, quite in the second half of the year.
"The expected withdrawal of financial stimulus, higher taxes, the probability of increasing seductiveness rates and the implications of open spending cuts have for an capricious opinion that is expected to stroke on consumer confidence.
Sir Ian McGeechan has assimilated the ranks of those who hold that Danny Cipriani will good from personification his rugby in the southern hemisphere over the subsequent dual years.
Not usually will Cipriani grown up as a player and person, McGeechan said, he will come underneath the superintendence of one of the worlds most appropriate coaches, Rod Macqueen.
Cipriani, who scored all the points for London Wasps in a losing Guinness Premiership means opposite Leeds Carnegie on Sunday, is due to stick on Melbourne Rebels, the new Super fifteen franchise, in October. By you do so the 22-year-old fly half has effectively ruled himself out of row for the England patrol that will foe the 2011 World Cup, although, as he observes, he would be usually a short moody afar in an emergency.
But McGeechan, the former Lions manager who was executive of rugby at Wasps as Cipriani emerged to general standing in 2008, thinks that as well most has been approaching of the player and as well most vigour has been placed on Martin Johnson, the England group manager, to collect him. People dont think about Danny has had dual shop-worn legs in the last eighteen months, McGeechan said. They were regularly posing the subject about when England would fool around him, that was unfair.
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He knows that if he is to fool around for England, he has to fool around consistently well for his bar and not since of a press campaign. Two years in the southern hemisphere opposite South Africans, New Zealanders and Australians will not be a bad preparation for him. Hell be out of the media spotlight and I would have suggested him to take the opportunity.
Hes additionally going to a manager who I think will get the most appropriate out of him. Rod Macqueen is an superb coach, he will see Danny as a really critical challenge, to get him behind to where he was when he played Ireland [in Mar 2008, Ciprianis initial begin at fly half for England]. That diversion is the bottom from that you wish him to develop.
In McGeechans opinion, Cipriani is still anticipating his most appropriate form after recuperating from dual critical injuries. He played as well early for England last deteriorate and, at the moment, Danny should not be in the [international] conversation, McGeechan said. Its astray to Martin that he is. He has to sense calm and come to assimilate what the subsequent step is.
Cipriani is a key figure in Wasps ambitions of reaching the Premiership play-offs and the bar will goal not to lose Simon Shaws services. It is doubtful that Shaw will underline in Englands superfluous dual games opposite Scotland and France in the RBS Six Nations Championship after deleterious the A/C corner in his left shoulder in the fifth notation of Saturdays 20-16 better by Ireland at Twickenham.
He a dilettante yesterday but it is accepted that Shaw will need 4 weeks to recover, that opens the probability that Courtney Lawes, the Northampton lock, will lapse to the compare squad. Lawes, capped as a deputy opposite Australia last November, has been personification in the behind row in new games for his bar but the second row is where his destiny lies and where he will be in foe with Louis Deacon.
Delon Armitage, the London Irish full back, has a shop-worn rib cartilage so his accessibility is in doubt. The alternative thirteen members of the starting XV, and Deacon, Ben Foden and David Wilson, will be defended by England this week end prior to the general opposite Scotland a week on Saturday but the superfluous patrol members go behind to their clubs. Wales, meanwhile, have lost Deiniol Jones after Fridays better by France, the Cardiff Blues close additionally pang rib damage.
Ospreys predestine in the balanceThe ERC house discussed on Monday the ramifications of Ricky Januaries impasse for Ospreys during their argumentative Heineken Cup pool compare opposite Leicester in January. The eligibility of Januarie, the South Africa scrum half, to fool around in the diversion has been challenged since he did not imitate with the smallest contractual duration of 3 months that would assent him to crop up in European competitions, but ERC has nonetheless to criticism strictly on the outcome. The Springboks will endorse after this month that they will fool around opposite Wales at the Millennium Stadium on Jun 5.
Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto perform a Moldovan folk dance in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Photograph: Anatoly Maltsev/EPA
Now that the Winter Olympics are over, and the assorted inhabitant vanities have been possibly assuaged or deflated, we can concentration on the majority critical and impending subject of Vancouver 2010: Who was the sexiest contestant there?
The Winter Olympics are approach hotter than the Summer Olympics, even if everybody is wearing woolies. The sports are riskier and as a result sexier. Now that I"ve seen what a downhill march looks like, I am vacant that people indispensable to invent bungie jumping or the Jackass franchise. Why order a new form of adrenaline-pumping self-destruction when there are preexisting methods that concede you to consequence medals? Have you seen the womanlike structure of the body medallists? If they"re peaceful to take their bodies to such an impassioned dilemma in public, what contingency they do when they"re at the behind of sealed doors?
In the margin of human beauty, as in the margin of sport, viewable frontrunners arise early. In the bars and coffee shops of Canada (at slightest the ones that I frequent) a accord about the dual womanlike beauty-leaders has emerged. One) Tanith Belbin, the impossibly cheekboned, huge-eyed partner of Ben Agosto, who accomplished fourth in the ice-dancing and Two) Julia Mancuso, the American skier who is all an American skier should be, next to tools glorious and heartiness, as though her each proton was done up of uninformed breath. I would additionally similar to to suggest dual lower-profile athletes who are not as monotonously Valkyrian: Three) Kimiko Zakreski, a Canadian snowboarder who should have been expel as an elfin princess in Lord of the Rings and Four) Stella Heiss, the lead for the German women"s curling team, who seems never to be smiling, regularly at limit intensity. She additionally has the majority pleasing hair I have ever seen.
For the men, it"s not even a contest. The leader has to be Bode Miller, the American skier. Besides carrying clever manly facilities and a ideally exquisite face, he additionally has that diabolical multiple of a bad-boy repute and a winning record. Everyone else is fighting for second place. I would similar to to put brazen Eric Staal, the immature Canadian hockey player, and the Dutch skater Sven Kramer. They"re both preposterously, roughly ethereally beautiful, similar to enchanting leopards who have taken on human form, but they have flaws. Eric Staal is a hockey player, and so kick up. Kramer has one of those skaters" asses. Other options: Switzerland"s contented and friendly Stephane Lambiel, and, if you similar to that sort of thing, the rarely ethereal and rose-garlanded American skater Johnny Weir.
All the athletes that competed at the Vancouver games are ridiculously sexy, of course. Even bald Kevin Martin, right away strictly the biggest curler who ever lived, has that sure smell of value about him that is pristine horniness. And there were 2,000 of these athletes. From each dilemma of the world. With a slight over-representation from Scandinavia. All in a village. And they were usually going to be together for dual weeks. And afterwards they were never going to see each alternative again.
No consternation VANOC had to have an puncture call for some-more condoms to fill the burned out bonds in the last days of the games. Today, a lot of pleasing immature people are smiling on their approach behind home.
A rich rancher was plied with ethanol and sleeping tablets by his dual daughters prior to they forced him to shift his will, the High Court has been told.
George Key, 89, had regularly programmed to leave Hall Farm in Mundham, Norfolk, to his dual sons given they had worked on it given they were teenagers, it was alleged. But the justice was told that Jane Key and Mary Boykin plotted to feat their fathers pique at their mothers genocide days prior to to have him pointer a new will in that they were left �300,000 each.
Under the conditions of a will done in 2001 his daughters were due to be left �15,000 in between them.
Richard Key told the justice that he and his hermit John had worked on the farm, that forms a estimable estate, from the age of 15.
His father had lacked the compulsory mental genius when his sisters carried out their intentional plan in Dec 2006. Their poise was outrageous and improper, he said.
He referred to in his declare have a difference that the women doubled his fathers dose of sleeping tablets and poured him whisky, withdrawal him confused. He would not have accepted what he was you do given he was stricken with pique after the genocide of his mother after 65 years of marriage.
Mr Key said: It did not appear to have a difference to them to force my father to have a will, that was the last thing he would have wanted.
Simon Redmayne, the brothers counsel, pronounced that the aged rancher had turn increasingly inattentive in the years prior to his genocide in 2008. Mary Frost, who worked at the plantation as a made at home help, said: Mr Key pronounced to me, The girls got me to pointer something but I do not know what it was for.
John Ross Martyn, warn for the sisters, referred to that there was usually singular justification to await the allegations. He pronounced that Mr Key had dictated to give his dual daughters �300,000 as he had already bequeathed land value an homogeneous total to his sons.
Mrs Boykin, giving evidence, denied the allegations. She said: Im an honest, decent chairman and so was my father and he longed for to put things right. The box continues.
