The Premier League season hots up from here on, with teams still running entering the business end of the FA Cup and Europa League, while at home those left with games to play against the top eight will be sure to drop points. Take a look here at a concise look at the fixtures left to play for those fighting for fourth place.

Liverpool, having recently played both Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur in must-win games and taken 3 points off both, play Man City, main rivals for a top four finish and a place in the Champions League next season, as their next fixture in the League. If they lose at Eastlands, they could potentially be an impossible nine points adrift of Mancini's men.

Spurs and Manchester City have particularly tough run-ins and both could potentially still be in the FA Cup come the quarter and semi-finals. Villa, however, have the easiest run-in (proving that they cannot be ruled out) while things will finally be looking up for Liverpool if they take 3 points in their next game, a move which would undoubtedly make them favourites.

Liverpool have become targets of the richest man in India and eighth richest man in the world, Mukesh Ambani. While investment is just what the club needs to turn fortunes around with Man City threatening to continue to knock on the door to the top four if they fail to beat Liverpool to the Champions League next year, the petrochemicals investor has made a point of denying the rumours in the British media.

In other news, West Ham have been told that the players and manager must take a 25% pay-cut next season to survive. Surely, though, when Mido has just arrived there on loan from Middlesborough and has been willing to take a cut in pay from £50,000 a week to just £1,000 a week so he can be a Premiership footballer again, anyone dedicated to the West Ham cause shouldn't complain.

The revelations come at a time when the team are to play Birmingham FC next in the Premier League, after having acquired ex-blues owner David Sullivan in a takeover last month. His co-owner David Gold has insisted that the Hammers are a bigger club than their next opponents, and with longer spells in the top division and cup successes to their name it is hard not to agree. The flames have been fanned, though, in what could potentially be a damaging way, now that Birmingham are one of the richest clubs (in terms of ownership) in the League.

Revelations over Chelsea skipper John Terry's private life led to much speculation over the past week as to what actions England manager Fabio Capello would take. The Italian disciplinarian saw fit to do what the bookies said he would, but the man has less sense than people give him credit for.

At least this puts to bed the ridiculous notion that one Wayne Rooney would make him himself the least experienced team-leader on the international stage. Should a violent pit-bull with no desire to adhere to FIFA's Respect campaign really have been put in charge? Only in a team run by Sir Alex Ferguson, but then didn't I once spot Gennaro Gattuso wearing the armband for Italy in the absence of Buffon?

Steven Gerrard has only been offered the place of vice-captain, while David Beckham has been left out of the loop altogether (though this is, I am sure, thanks to a predicted lack of first-team football). In Terry's place he has put a man with no cleaner a record, and one who is facing a potential five-match ban for his assault on Hull's Craig Fagan. Drink driving, hotel orgies and missed drugs tests must mean nothing to Capello...

The Merseyside Derby is the Premier League's early kick-off this Saturday, and Rafa Benitez has made special mention of out-of-form Captain Steven Gerrard and childhood Evertonian Jamie Carragher as the key members to make or break this season's fixture at Anfield.

Both enter the game having found form for the first time in their abysmal seasons. Liverpool have ahead of them in the month of February the most crucial four weeks in their race for fourth place ahead of Man City, Spurs and Villa, while Everton find themselves creeping up on Birmingham in 8th place who have had an excellent debut season in the Premier League, having spent two years in the Championship.





David Moyes won the Premier League's Manager of the Month for January, and hopes to start the next month with a blistering win at the red end of Stanley Park. He has released that Yakubu has made a return from injury and will be in contention for a start, a move that would bring about a fascinating battle between Everton's big Nigerian centre forward and Liverpool's Greek stopper Kyrgiakos, who has found his feet at the club with a current form of 3 starts and 3 clean sheets.

Fernando Torres misses another derby but Gerrard returns, and Dirk Kuyt, who scored at Goodison Park in November after having been moved into a central attacking role, will no doubt do Torres' job tomorrow with help from Albert Riera on the left and (it's anyone's guess) either Yossi Benayoun or the new Maxi Rodriguez on the right. Rafa has apparently told his team to go on a desperate attack over the next four weeks in what could either make or ruin the club's chances of playing in the Champions League next year, so may even play Alberto Aquilani over Lucas Leiva, but it is doubtful...

Uefa's team of the year, chosen by fans, has been announced. Inevitably, its majority is made up of Barcelona players, six in total, with three others also playing in Spain (namely, of course, Real Madrid.

The goalkeeper is Spain and Real's first keeper Iker Cassilas, while Carles Puyol captains the team in centre-back alongside England's John Terry. Manchester United's Patrice Evra, somehow, made it in at left-back while the excellent Daniel Alves completes the defence in right-back.

The world's most highly-rated player Cristiano Ronaldo plays in midfield alongside his Real Madrid team-mate Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite (AKA Kaka), while their bitter rival's Barcelona's Xavi and Iniesta complete the midfield.



Up front we have the excellent Argentina forward and 2009 Champions League Final goalscorer Lionel Messi. Somehow, though, he has been put up front with the vastly over-rated Zlatan Ibrahimovich.

With only two Barcelona players in defence this makes it the only position to be balanced out with two from another League, namely, inevitably, the Premier League. While John Terry of Chelsea gives England a look-in, it is the Frenchman Patrice Evra that makes the defence the most diverse area of the field.

Even the manager works in Spain. Not hard to guess.....Pep Guardiola. Of Barcelona. And Spain. Out of 12 on the list, then, 5 are, or were, Spanish internationals, there are 2 Brazilians, 1 Englishman, 1 Argentinian, 1 Portuguese, 1 Frenchman and 1 Swede. Nationalities are diverse, at least, if not the League and Club representations.