Arsenal vs Sunderland 2011

Robin van Persie rescued Arsenal from another disappointing Barclays Premier League result with a fantastic winner against Sunderland at the Emirates Stadium.

The Holland striker, who used his programme notes to declare his full commitment to Arsenal, put the hosts ahead after just 29 seconds but the sides went in level at half-time thanks to an excellent free-kick from former Gunner Sebastian Larsson.

The game appeared destined for a draw as Arsenal proceeded to squander several good second-half chances, but Van Persie saved the Londoners' blushes with a wonderful curling free-kick nine minutes from time.

The win gave Arsenal the perfect tonic after their north London derby defeat two weeks ago, but the creaky manner in which they snuck past struggling Sunderland will do little to silence the doubters who claim the Gunners are a spent force.

Under-pressure Black Cats boss Steve Bruce, meanwhile, will rue his side's failure to convert a number of first-half opportunities and they now sit outside the drop zone only on goal difference.

 Back foot

Keen to make up for their loss at White Hart Lane, Arsenal flew out of the blocks and took an early lead.

Some Arsenal fans had still not taken their seats by the time that Gervinho got on the end of Tomas Rosicky's lobbed pass and squared to Van Persie, who took one touch before drilling low past Simon Mignolet from 18 yards to record the fastest top-flight goal of the season so far.

The strike stunned the Black Cats and they remained on the back foot for the rest of the opening half hour.

This was the Arsenal of old. Confident in possession and sturdy at the back, they pushed for a second as the away side struggled to get a touch on the ball.

Van Persie was then denied an early contender for goal of the season by the woodwork.

With 13 minutes on the clock, the Dutchman spun his marker on the edge of the box and clipped a delightful chip that sailed over Mignolet but bounced out off the post and Gervinho just missed out on the tap-in.

Full of confidence, Van Persie than flashed a powerful 20-yard drive just wide.

Gervinho was also in his pomp. The Ivory Coast man cut inside from the left flank with a clever turn and crashed a fierce shot just over.

Wojciech Szczesny then went walkabout, handing Sessegnon a glorious chance to equalise, but the winger's cross was cut out by Alex Song as the Arsenal goal lay unguarded.

Arsenal's confidence was knocked and Sunderland shocked the home crowd with a stunning equaliser from Larsson.

Break down

Mikel Arteta's handball gave the Black Cats a free-kick 20 yards out and Larsson whipped a delightful curling shot over the wall and past a sprawling Szczesny to make it 1-1.

The strike was so good that Rosicky had already started walking to the halfway line without turning his back to see if the shot had gone in.

Szczesny denied Sunderland the lead moments later when he blocked Lee Cattermole's header from six yards after an error from Carl Jenkinson allowed Sessegnon to break down the left.

The game became scrappy at the start of the second half.

Mignolet kept Van Persie's near-post effort out with his feet as Arsenal increased the pressure on the visitors.

A moment of brilliance from substitute Andrey Arshavin almost gave Arsenal the lead with just under 20 minutes left.

The Russian danced past two Sunderland defenders into the box and nutmegged Michael Turner with a shot that went a yard wide of Mignolet's goal.

Brown's clumsy challenge on Van Persie gave Arsenal another free-kick on the edge of the box with nine minutes left. The Holland international succeeded where his team-mates had failed before him by curling a brilliant set-piece into the top corner and then removing his shirt in a jubilant celebration.

Ji Dong-won was then played in to the box by Connor Wickham and slotted past Szczesny but his effort was rightly ruled out for offside.

Sunderland pushed for a second equaliser towards the end, but it never came and Wenger's side took the spoils after another nervy afternoon.

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Liverpool vs Manchester United 2011

It may not have lived up to Sir Alex Ferguson's billing as the greatest match-up in English football but Liverpool's draw at home to Manchester United was typically not without incident.

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard was denied a dream return to the starting line-up when his free-kick midway through the second half was cancelled out by substitute Javier Hernandez's late header.

The England international put seven months of rehabilitation behind him after a groin operation in March by capping an assured performance in midfield with the goal which looked like extending his side's home dominance over their arch-rivals.

However, Hernandez prevented a fourth successive United defeat at Anfield - which has not happened since 1979 - to maintain his team's unbeaten record this season.

It also denied Liverpool a happier anniversary than the one they were enjoying after marking the 12 months to the day since they were bought by Americans Fenway Sports Group.

Wayne Rooney's demotion to the bench summed up his miserable week after his England sending-off and subsequent three-match ban for Euro 2012, which was the talking point before kick-off.

Torrid time

Once the match kicked off there were plenty of others - mainly in the second half - with Rio Ferdinand's disputed foul on Charlie Adam which could have resulted in the defender seeing red and United goalkeeper David de Gea's impressive performance just two.

The first half was essentially about trying to establish a grip on the match and although Liverpool had the better of that scrap early on United had done enough to restore the balance by the interval.

Both sides had chances to open the scoring with Phil Jones, playing in midfield, heading Patrice Evra's deep left-wing cross into the side-netting when he could have done better.

A similar accusation could have been levelled at Luis Suarez, who looked like he would give Rio Ferdinand a torrid time after their opening exchanges but found the United defender a worthy opponent as the half drew on.

The Uruguay international found himself with only David de Gea to beat when Charlie Adam's 34th-minute shot kindly rebounded off Jonny Evans but the striker shot straight at the goalkeeper who parried the ball to safety.

Gerrard found the midfield a little too crowded for his liking and rarely got the space or opportunity to have much impact.

Second attempt

Early in the second half Ashley Young's 25-yard free-kick briefly had Jose Reina scrambling to claim at the second attempt but the tide was gradually turning in favour of the hosts.

They felt they should have had a penalty when Dirk Kuyt's header struck the arm of Evans. And when Ferdinand, who had been booked for an earlier foul on Suarez, tripped a charging Adam with the slightest of touches as he threatened to break into the penalty area, the Liverpool fans were convinced he should have been sent off.

Gerrard, however, exacted a greater punishment when he curled home a low shot from the resulting 25-yard free-kick after Ryan Giggs left a space in the wall.

Rooney and Nani were immediately sent on, with the latter blazing a shot well over, before fellow substitute Hernandez was introduced for the final 15 minutes.

And he made his mark within six minutes of coming on as Danny Welbeck flicked on a left-wing cross and the youngster headed home unmarked at the far post.

But United were indebted to De Gea, who has come in for a fair amount of criticism in his maiden season, as the Spaniard threw himself to his left to deny Dirk Kuyt.

He was in action again in injury time when he acrobatically tipped over a shot from Henderson, with the Liverpool midfielder also having a chance to win it even later only his header from Stewart Downing's cross dropping onto the roof of the net.

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Get a lot of Profit by the Internet

It looks like the owners of TheInternetProfitHouse.com haven’t been paying to attention to the new FTC regulations. A quick look at their website reveals many violations of new and old guidelines put forth by the Federal Trade Commission, not mention a whole host of other shady practices.
These one page Google Kit type websites have been plaguing the Internet for close to a year now. They’ve made use of the latest tools in online deception, including billing fraud, and despite prevalent legal threats are showing no signs of slowing down.
I found out about The Internet Profit House by visiting a site called internet-news-daily.com, which featured an article on Mary Steadman and her success working from home with Google. The article described how all Mary does is post links on Google which earn her $25 per link.
The article closes with a link to TheInternetProfitHouse.com claiming that you can get started for just one buck in shipping and handling fees. This feel good story has been responsible for convincing hundreds of thousands of people into signing up for one of these kits; sadly the entire thing is one big fraud.
If you scroll past the comments on the article, which are all completely fabricated, you’ll get to the disclaimers for internet-news-daily.com. Curiously, this section is longer than the entire article itself and reveals some very interesting things about Mary Steadman and internet news daily.
The reasons for the massive legal protection:

1. This is not a real newspaper.
2. They are completely misrepresenting the opportunity.
3. The testimonial is bogus and is not a real representation of earnings.
4. They are using companies’ trademarks without their knowledge or consent.

This is just what’s wrong with the site linking to TheInternetProfitHouse.com; when you get to the actual sign-up page you’re greeted with even more red flags. Let’s take a look.

 

Here’s a list of infractions found on The Internet Profit House:

1. Another misrepresentation of popular trademarks which have no association with the product.
2. Exaggerated and unsubstantiated income claims; they think that if they can prove that one person made that much money they can get away with having those outrageous figures in their sales pitch by covering it with a “results not typical” disclaimer. According to the FTC that is no longer allowed.
3. Bogus timer; no matter how long you take to sign up for this thing they’ll always take your money.
4. Unlawfully using the trust marks; if they were a legitimate site those icons would link to a profile for TheInternetProfitHouse.com signifying that the website has been approved. As is they’re just using the images with no sort of merit attached.

Again, this is just what’s wrong based on a quick once over. When you get down to the terms and conditions you’ll find out exactly why you shouldn’t do business with this company.  They say that all you need to do is pay the $0.99 for S&H to get started, however the full story is revealed in the fine print:

When you order the Risk Free Trial of My Online Cash Secrets you will be charged only $1.97 (non-refundable) for access to the The My Online Cash Secrets training program. You will have a full 7 day risk free trial period from your original purchase date to decide if the My Online Cash Secrets program is right for you. At the end of your 7 day trial period you will be charged $68.53 for access to the The My Online Cash Secrets program.
Refund Policy: Please note that no refunds are given after the expiration of the 7 day trial period. The mailed business kit is yours to keep and since there are no additional physical products with My Online Cash Secrets, no returns of any sort are accepted. You can cancel your membership at any time by simply contacting customer service via telephone or email.
Their Contact info is as Follows:
Toll Free Customer Service: Phone: 877-340-4694 – Customer Service representatives are available during regular business hours. E-mail: support@myonlinecashsecrets.com
My Online Cash Secrets
Athinodorou 3,
Dasoupoli, Strovolos,
P.C. 2025 Nicosia, Cyprus

So what we have here is a site that doesn’t disclose the full price of its course and is counting on the fact that you don’t read the fine print in time to cancel. The best part is that they’re located offshore, which means that all legal disputes have to take place in Nicosia, Cyprus. Good luck canceling…
By this point it should be pretty obvious that you need to stay far away from TheInternetProfitHouse.com/My Online Cash Secrets or whatever they’re going to be calling themselves next month.

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Saving for Retirement with More Than Mutual Funds

This guest post from Randy is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success — or failure. These stories feature folks from all levels of financial maturity and with all sorts of incomes.

For the past twenty years, I’ve saved a significant percentage of my income due to career growth, semi-frugal living, and not having any offspring. I’m now 55 years old. Because I’ve made some non-traditional choices, I want to share how I’ve grown my wealth.

Each year, I allocated part of my savings to traditional tax-deferred 401(k) and IRA accounts, using mutual funds (stocks) from Fidelity, Janus, Vanguard, etc. The Roth IRA didn’t exist yet, or I made too much money when they did exist. I also allocated a large part of my savings to after-tax, taxable investments, likewise using the same or similar mutual funds.

Lately I’ve been emphasizing after-tax investments (non-Roth, just plain old taxable investments) even more. Why?

• If the investments perform well, capital gains taxes paid on after-tax investments will lower my total long-term tax bill compared to traditional IRAs where all dollars when withdrawn are treated as regular income.
• You can (and I do) own real estate in self-directed IRAs (both traditional and Roth), but owning real estate in an IRA is kind of a pain in the butt. When you do this, the IRS requires that you deal with a third party through a custodial company.
• Having non-Roth, after-tax investments gives you huge flexibility in life to invest in opportunities with much greater upside potential than mutual funds have. My personal examples include funding my own business startups (plural), making sizable down payments on rental properties when they were devalued three years ago, buying subdivision lots in resort areas with cash, and paying off a mortgage on a nice 3400-square-foot home in twelve years.

Obviously you want to use employer matches in 401(k), IRA, and similar programs to their fullest extent. But beyond that, each person should look critically at how she invests the rest. For many people, maxing out tax-deferred investing is best since they don’t have the willpower to invest the remainder and leave it invested. Others who do have willpower but don’t have entrepreneurial tendencies should do the same.

However, for some people — people like me — who have the willpower and the inclination to spend time and energy researching and managing alternative investments, traditional options tend to be highly overrated. If you can make a better return with alternative investments, then that is what you should do.

Unfortunately, both advertising dollars and news-media hype have convinced most Americans to follow a highly overrated route. Why would this be? Because that’s how the financial industry makes its money. There’s no real conspiracy here; it’s just the financial industry trying to obtain and keep customers. When individuals invest in their own businesses or small real-estate transactions, there’s no money being made by the mutual fund companies, the investment banks, the financial advisors, the financial columnists, the financial television show hosts, and so on.

Here’s another aspect of the issue: When you’re in your twenties and thirties, you don’t even realize that you might want these non-401(k), non-IRA dollars available to give you the flexibility in your forties and fifties to try some other ways of investing. Like most people, I kept those after-tax non-Roth dollars in mutual funds for many years, but when the opportunities came to start businesses, buy rental houses, etc., I was ready, willing, and able.

As a final note, one of my subdivision lots (in a self-directed IRA) did lose a great percentage of its value during 2008 and 2009. My solution was to purchase a second nearby lot with IRA money, then have both lots appraised and convert them both to a Roth IRA account at the lower appraised values. By the way, I have the cash in hand to pay the taxes due upon conversion to Roth because not all of my dollars are locked up in IRAs.

Saving for retirement with traditional methods is a fine thing, but it’s not the only way to get rich slowly. If you’re willing to think outside the financial box, you can find other ways to diversify your investments.

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A Champion in profile: Casey Stoner

Sunday, 16 October 2011

Casey Stoner’s second MotoGP title could not have been achieved in more fitting circumstances, after the Repsol Honda rider secured the 2011 crown on the day of his 26th birthday and at his home race, the Iveco Australian Grand Prix.

 

The first and only Honda rider to win the MotoGP title in the 800cc era – this year being the last of the engine capacity before an increase to a 1000cc limit in 2012 – Stoner adds to his 2007 title which came in Ducati colours. In taking the 2011 crown Stoner also becomes only the fifth rider to have won premier class titles with two different manufacturers, the others being Giacomo Agostini, Valentino Rossi, Geoff Duke and Eddie Lawson.
Big things were heralded for Stoner when, as a 15 year-old, he made his World Championship debut as a 125cc wildcard at Donington Park in 2001. Having graduated through the same academy system that also produced his future factory Honda team-mate Dani Pedrosa, Stoner fully capitalised on the bold move made by his family of moving to Europe to further his fledgling career.
A full time Grand Prix career started in the 250cc category under Lucio Cecchinello’s guidance in 2002, but it was a step down to the 125cc class the following season that saw Stoner’s talent begin to fully flourish with four podiums and a first victory in the final round of the campaign. In 2004 he challenged for the title, taking KTM’s first ever Grand Prix win and ending the season fifth overall.
A step back up to 250s with Cecchinello’s team in 2005 produced a thrilling battle with Pedrosa for the title as Stoner amassed five wins on the Aprilia, and the next year he and the LCR team debuted in the premier MotoGP class on board a Honda as the Australian displayed flashes of brilliance – which included a pole position in only his second race at Qatar and second place in Turkey – mixed with a few disappointing crashes, all part of the learning experience. He had shown enough to encourage Ducati to make an offer to ride on their factory team the next season, and what followed was a stunning campaign.



A maiden MotoGP victory in the first race of 2007 at Qatar was a self-confessed surprise for both rider and team, but once he followed this up with wins at Turkey and China a title challenge became a more than realistic target. His standout performance at Catalunya, where he battled toe-to-toe with five-time champion Valentino Rossi will go down as one of the great races in history, whilst he dominated the mid-season with pole-to-flag victories at three consecutive races at Laguna Seca, Brno and Misano. Stoner went on to secure the title with four rounds to spare, and ended 2007 with a total of 10 wins, 14 podiums and 5 poles.
Defending his title in 2008, Stoner fought rival Rossi intensely as the pair crossed swords on a number of occasions, their duel at Laguna Seca still being talked about as one of the greatest battles of recent years, and the Australian eventually ended the season runner-up to his Italian adversary despite taking 6 wins and 9 poles in a strong second campaign on the Desmosedici.
2009 did not run a smooth course for Stoner, a mid-season three-race break due to fatigue uncovered a lactose intolerance that had affected his physical condition on the bike, and he ended the season 4th overall in the standings. 2010 was to prove not much easier as he took only three wins – all in the final third of the season – on an increasingly hard to tame Desmosedici. By that stage it had already been announced that Stoner would ride for the factory Repsol Honda team in 2011.
The switch has proved a resounding success as the 2007 World Champion displayed the same kind of dominant form that delivered him his first title four years earlier. Pole position and victory in the opening round in Qatar was a sign of things to come, and by the time Stoner won the race in Phillip Island to clinch the title with two more rounds to spare he had already taken nine victories. Added to that race success has been an incredible consistency, which has seen him finish off the podium just once – in the second round at Jerez where he crashed out through no fault of his own.
Winning his home race in Australia for a fifth consecutive season handed Stoner not only his second World title, but his 32nd career MotoGP victory, as he took victory from another pole position – his 11th of the season; this represents a new record for the most poles in one season in the MotoGP four-stroke era.
Some facts about Casey Stoner’s achievement
- Casey Stoner is the first Honda rider to win the MotoGP title during the 800cc era of MotoGP.
- Stoner last won the MotoGP championship in 2007 and in winning the title this year becomes the first rider to regain the premier class world title after a three year gap.
- He has been on pole 11 times during 2011, which is a new record for most poles in one season in the MotoGP four-stroke era.
- He becomes only the fifth rider to win the premier class title on motorcycles from two different manufacturers. The other riders to have done this are Giacomo Agostini, Valentino Rossi, Geoff Duke and Eddie Lawson.
- Casey Stoner has 32 career victories in MotoGP, placing him fifth in the all-time premier-class Grand Prix winners list, after Valentino Rossi, Giacomo Agostini, Mick Doohan and Mike Hailwood.

 

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