Pre-season fixtures for the Premier League teams ahead of the 2010-11 season

Arsenal

17 July v Barnet (A) 3pm

21 July v Sturm Graz (A) 6pm

27 July v SC Neusiedl 1919 (A) 6pm

31 July v Milan (H, Emirates Cup) 4.20pm

1 August v Celtic (H, Emirates Cup) 4.20pm

7 August v Legia Warsaw (A) 3pm

Aston Villa

24 July v Bohemians (A) 3pm

27 July v Walsall (A) 7.45pm

31 July v Feyenoord (A) 9.15pm

1 August v Benfica (A) 9.15pm

6 August v Valencia (H) 7.45pm

Birmingham City

18 July v Hong Kong League Selection Team (A) 3pm

21 July v Beijing Guoan FC (A) 7.30pm

24 July v Liaoning Hongyun Football Club (A) 8pm

31 July v Derby County (A) 3pm

3 August v MK Dons (A) 7.30pm

7 August v Real Mallorca (H) 3pm

Blackburn Rovers

10 July v Sturm Graz (A) 5pm

17 July v Fleetwood Town (A) 3pm

20 July v Preston North End (A) 7.45pm

21 July v Huddersfield Town (A) 7.45pm

25 July v Rangers (N, Sydney Festival of Football) 3pm

28 July v AEK Aens (N, Sydney Festival of Football) 6pm

31 July v Sydney FC (A, Sydney Festival of Football) 7.15pm

7 August v Hearts (A) 3pm

Blackpool

16 July v Tiverton Town (A) 7.30pm

20 July v Accrington Stanley (A) 7.30pm

22 July v Kilmarnock (A) 8pm

27 July v Crewe Alexandra (A) 7.30pm

31 July v Bristol City (A) 3pm

Bolton Wanderers

14 July v Charlotte Eagles (A) TBC

17 July v Charleon Battery (A) TBC

17 July v Bamber Bridge (A) 3pm

21 July v Toronto FC (A) TBC

23 July v Chorley (A) 7.30pm

24 July v Rochdale (A) 3pm

27 July v Curzon Ashton (A) 7.45pm

28 July v Morecambe (A) 7.45pm

30 July v Fleetwood Town (A) 7.45pm

31 July v Falkirk (A) 3pm

2 August v Johnstone (A) 7.45pm

4 August v AFC Fylde (A) 7.45pm

6 August v Osasuna (H) TBC

7 August v Barrow (A) 3pm

Chelsea

17 July v Crystal Palace (A) 3pm

23 July v Ajax (A) 8pm

1 August v Eintracht Frankfurt (A) 3pm

4 August v Hamburg (A) 8pm

Everton

10 July v Sydney FC (A) 7.30pm

14 July v Melbourne Heart (A) 7.30pm

17 July v Brisbane Roar (A) 7.30pm

24 July v Preston North End (A) 3pm

31 July v Norwich City (A) 3pm

4 August v Everton Chile (H) 8pm

7 August v Wolfsburg (A) 4pm

Fulham

14 July v Brentford (A) 8pm

17 July v Bournemouth (A) 3pm

31 July v Portsmouth (A) 3pm

Liverpool

17 July v Al Hilal (A) 6pm

21 July v Grasshopper (A) 6.30pm

24 July v Kaiserslautern (A) TBC

1 August v Borussia Mönchengladbach (A) 1.30pm

Manchester City

23rd July v Sporting Lisbon (A, New York Football Challenge) 8pm

25 July v New York Red Bulls (A, New York Football Challenge) 3pm

28 July v Club America (A) 8pm

31 July v Internazionale (A) 8pm

4 August v Borussia Dortmund (A) 8pm

Manchester United

16 July v Celtic (N) TBC

21 July v Philadelphia Union (A) 7.30pm

25 July v Kansas City Wizards (A) 5pm

28 July v MLS All-Stars (N) 6pm

4 August v League of Ireland XI (N) TBC

Newcastle United

17 July v Carlisle United (A) TBC

24 July v Norwich City (A) 3pm

31 July v PSV Eindhoven (H) TBC

7 August v Rangers (A) TBC

Stoke City

22 July v Nantwich Town (A) 7pm

22 July v Notts County (A) 7.45pm

24 July v Newcastle Town (A) 2.30pm

27 July v Derby County (A) 7.45pm

31 July v Burnley (H) 3pm

3 August v Bristol Rovers (A) 7.45pm

6 August v Wrexham (A) 7.45pm

Sunderland

17 July v Darlington (A) 3pm

Tottenham Hotspur

10 July v Bournemouth (A) 3pm

17 July v San Jose Earquakes (A) TBC

29 July v Villarreal (H) 8pm

3 August v Benfica (A) 7.45pm

7 August v Fiorentina (H) 3pm

West Bromwich Albion

20 July v Crewe Alexandra (A) 7.30pm

24 July v Bristol Rovers (A) 3pm

West Ham United

24 July v Burton Albion (A) 3pm

Wigan Athletic

20 July v Oldham (A) 7.45pm

4 August v Real Zaragoza (H) 7.45pm

8 August v Dundee United (A) 3pm

Wolverhampton Wanderers

17 July v Bohemians (A) 3pm

20 July v Walsall (A) 7.45pm

24 July v Charleroi (A) TBC

27 July v Reading (A) 8pm

30 July v Cheltenham Town (A) 7.45pm

31 July v Leeds United (A) 3pm

3 August v Hearts (A) 7pm

7 August v Athletic Bilbao (H) 3pm

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West Ham attempt to arrest their decline, Chelsea end their bad moment and Arsène Wenger goes postal

When the going gets tough, take a few days off

All managers have different ways of dealing with pressure. With Sheffield United facing a vital fixture at Doncaster this month, for example, the Blades manager Kevin Blackwell sat the players down to watch Ken Loach’s Kes in an attempt to lift the mood of his players. Eschewing gritty northern cinema and falconry, Gianfranco Zola has given his West Ham squad three days off following their defeat to Stoke at Upton Park, and taken himself off to the bolt hole of Sardinia.

West Ham’s co-owner David Sullivan said the break was to allow the players to “freshen up for the Everton game”, though the danger is that they will spend their time stewing over a run of six successive league defeats that has thrust the Hammers into the relegation maelstrom. Rather than clearing their collective heads of the stresses and strains at the bottom of the Premier League, the squad could also find themselves contemplating an uncertain future under a new manager should Zola, as many expect, decide to walk away from Upton Park.

Arsène Wenger shouldn’t swear

Mick McCarthy can eff and blind as much as he likes (and he does – in pretty much every press conference he ever gives). It suits. It makes sense. There’s something cosy and familiar about it, like a much loved pair of slippers or a favourite chair. Hearing the Wolves manager drop in a couple of bollocks or bastards is a reassuring sound, one that reminds us that some things in the world remain constant.

The same cannot be said for Arsène Wenger. The knowledge that the exasperated Arsenal manager answered questions about Birmingham’s tackling at St Andrew’s on Saturday with “Leave me alone with that, for fuck’s sake” jars horribly. Try hearing it in your head – it’s almost impossible. You end up with the computer voice from Microsoft Word, designed to help the visually impaired but much-beloved of 12-year-old boys in school IT lessons for whom hearing a tinny “You r gay” from a machine is the height of comedy.

Wenger is supposed to reside at the urbane end of the football manager spectrum, forays into the realms of spit and sawdust shouldn’t be allowed. It’s disconcerting. It’s unsettling. It’s downright weird. It’s like coming home to those slippers and chair to find they’re actually a pair of Doc Martens and an inflatable Guinness sofa. But let’s not kid ourselves, like some have over the weekend, that it’s a sign of an impending title-race meltdown Wenger’s team. The real sign of that at St Andrew’s was wearing gloves and the No1 shirt.

The sublime is better than the ridiculous

Of Fernando Torres’s two goals for Liverpool yesterday, which is your favourite? That first thunderbolt from the edge of the area, a goal so ridiculously good that at first sight it seemed the Spaniard could not possibly have meant it? Or the second, sublime, ice-in-the-veins finish that made it 3-0?

I’m sure I’m not the only one to prefer the second. Torres himself seems to have a soft spot for it. “I don’t think [the first goal] is the best I’ve scored,” said the Spain striker. “Good yes, but I think I’ve scored better, and I hope there are even better to come. The second goal was nice because the defender was coming across and [Craig] Gordon was too high. I had no chance to score and to wait was the only way.”

Chelsea are well and truly over their ‘bad moment’

It’s 47 years since a top-flight side in England scored a century of league goals in a season. With six games to play Chelsea are now 18 goals short of the mark last reached by Tottenham in 1962-63. Carlo Ancelotti’s side took the breath away against Aston Villa, hammering the seven nails into the coffin of the Villans’ Champions League hopes.

Less than a fortnight has passed since Chelsea looked anything but breathtaking in European defeat to José Mourinho’s Internazionale, a result that, when followed up with a dispiriting draw at Blackburn, suggested that Chelsea’s season was in danger of unravelling. A thumping win at Portsmouth followed but that was not enough for Ancelotti, who, ahead of Saturday’s fixture, said he wanted “to know that our bad moment is finished”. There’s not much doubt about that now.

Attempts to curb fan violence are not working

The scenes at Upton Park when Millwall visited in the Carling Cup earlier this season were some of the ugliest at a top-flight British football ground for a long time. Hundreds of fans were involved in what the police later described as “large-scale trouble”. There were pitch invasions, there were bricks and bottles thrown. A fan was stabbed outside the ground. The result? A £115,000 fine for the Hammers, while Millwall were cleared of three charges. As deterrents go it’s up there with pointing a twig at a charging rhino.

Blackburn’s trip to Burnley yesterday brought 40 arrests inside and outside the ground, while coins were apparently thrown at the referee Mike Dean as well as Blackburn’s David Dunn and Chris Samba. “A major policing operation has been in place throughout the day to prevent any disorder,” said Superintendent Terry Woods of Lancashire police. “Unfortunately we have had to deal with some disorder inside and outside the ground. However, the operation that is in place has enabled us to successfully deal with those pockets of disorder rapidly. I would like to point out that the vast majority of fans have behaved appropriately. Unfortunately, a minority have chosen not to behave in the same way.”

It’s a depressingly familiar situation, as miserable as it is unsurprising. Fan violence is a huge and thorny issue, one deserving of greater analysis than a few paragraphs here. But when the penalties for clubs are so light, there is little to deter those who see football as fair excuse for a punch up.

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• Portsmouth improve financial situation through sales
• West Ham complete protracted deal for Benni McCarthy

Portsmouth’s short-term financial concerns were eased, if only slightly, last night by the sale of their promising young goalkeeper Asmir Begovic to Stoke City for £3.25m in a move that re-establishes David James as first-choice at Fratton Park.

Begovic completed his move minutes before the passing of the 5pm transfer deadlineafter a day of frantic and occasionally fractious negotiations to provide Pompey, bottom of the Premier League and laden with debts of around £60m, with a timely injection of funds.

“Asmir is someone we have been tracking for some time and we believe that, potentially, he is the best young keeper in the country,” said the Stoke manager, Tony Pulis.

James, who had also been attracting interest from Stoke, will now remain at the club as No1 and may renegotiate his contract to remove a clause that would have seen his deal extended automatically should he play a further 10 games this season. That should ensure that, injuries permitting, he will be playing regularly ahead of the World Cup finals in the summer.

Players and staff at the stricken south coast club have still to be paid wages for January, though the Premier League has earmarked £1.8m from the £6m Portsmouth received from the sale of Younes Kaboul back to Tottenham Hotspur. A further £2.5m of that amount will go directly to Chelsea and Watford as the latest tranche of the money owed on the transfers of Glen Johnson, Mike Williamson and Tommy Smith, with the remainder to be channeled directly to Her Majesty’s ­Revenue and Customs.

The Premier League is aware that a further £12.5m in payments is due before the end of the season to clubs in relation to previous transfers, £4m of which is due to Udinese, Rennes and Lens in mid-March. A payment of £9m which the club’s former owner, Sacha Gaydamak, claimed was due at the end of January has also apparently not been met as yet.

While Portsmouth’s attempts to avoid relegation have been weakened over the transfer window, West Ham United’s desperation to remain in the top flight prompted the club’s new owners, David Gold and David Sullivan, to sanction the arrival of three new strikers before last night’s deadline. Benni McCarthy completed his £2.5m move from Blackburn Rovers on a two-and-a-half-year deal and was joined by the much-travelled Middlesbrough forward Mido, who had his loan deal moved from Cairo’s El Zamalek, and the ­Brazilian Ilan, who had been released by the French club St Etienne.

Fulham signed the Roma forward Stefano Okaka and Aston Villa’s former England full-back Nicky Shorey on loan deals, with the youngster Christopher Buchtmann moving to Craven Cottage from Liverpool. Roy Hodgson trimmed his squad to make way for the new arrivals by loaning Diomansy Kamara to Celtic, Tony Kallio to Sheffield United and Wayne Brown to Bristol Rovers.

Wolves‘ attempts to add to their ranks were frustrated after a £5m offer for Hull City’s Stephen Hunt was rejected, while the Crystal Palace full-back Nathaniel Clyne declined a move to Molineux.

Wigan Athletic added to their forward ranks by securing the Bolivia forward Marcelo Morena on loan from Shakhtar Donetsk, joining the £2.5m forward Victor Moses at the DW Stadium.

Transfer windowPortsmouthStoke CityWest Ham UnitedFulhamBlackburn RoversPremier LeagueDominic FifieldOwen Gibsonguardian.co.uk