Walter Smith’s limited resources and missing stars will give Hearts a chance to inflict damage

Maybe we should hold back on delivering Tony Mowbray’s last rites for now. While Celtic’s manager continues in his attempts for a January overhaul of the team, his counterpart across the city has been left with a personnel shortage that could render Rangers’ lead in the championship less definitive than many have imagined.

Rangers host Hearts tomorrow with an absentee list that reads something like this: Kenny Miller, Nacho Novo, Kris Boyd, Steven Naismith, DaMarcus Beasley, Pedro Mendes and Madjid Bougherra. Kyle Lafferty’s involvement depends on the speed of his recovery from illness.

Having such an experienced cast list sitting in the stand would cause Walter Smith a problem at any time but, with the manager patently unable to bring in reinforcements, it would be a major achievement if Rangers could emerge unscathed from their upcoming league games. Peculiarly, all of those listed apart from Bougherra are attacking players, even if Algeria’s continued involvement in the Africa Cup of Nations would hardly have pleased the Rangers manager.

It is hardly stretching matters to point out Smith has toiled to fill his substitutes’ bench with youth players for recent games. Maurice Edu and Kevin Thomson, who are edging back towards and are obviously still short of full fitness after their own injury troubles, are necessary starters in midfield on account of a lack of players elsewhere. Smith was not joking when he said Tuesday’s Scottish Cup replay against Hamilton, during which Miller and Novo picked up their latest afflictions, was a game Rangers could do without.

The next test comes against Hearts who, from nowhere, have discovered winning league form. They will arrive at Ibrox with the sole, and now usual, intension of suffocating the match by playing to their defensive strengths; given the shortage of attacking prowess at Rangers’ disposal, that could prove easier than normal. Bookmakers could be well advised to shorten odds on a 0-0 correct score.

Mowbray will already be fed up with reminders that Celtic have fallen nine points behind what is widely regarded, correctly, as not a vintage Rangers team. Celtic have a game in hand and have still to play their old foes twice but the evidence of this season suggests nothing will prove clear-cut between now and May.

Mowbray is in a tricky place; clearly overseeing a transitional phase at Celtic while being under pressure to deliver the success the club’s support demand. They demand it even more with Rangers in such a perilous financial position.

For all those who argue simple bad luck cost Celtic the New Year Old Firm match, there is a legitimate argument that it says little for Mowbray if an under-strength and under-performing Rangers side can depart Parkhead with a 1-1 draw. Strangely enough, the spirit and togetherness forged by Rangers being inactive with regards to bringing in new signings may be their biggest strength.

This intriguing French chap, Jérôme Rothen, could otherwise have been among those expected to step in to assist Smith during this injury crisis. However, the winger – who appeared in Glasgow on loan from Paris St-Germain five months ago to the usual nonsensical fanfare that accompanies a foreign arrival at the Old Firm – was last spotted in an airport departure lounge. Rothen featured only fleetingly in the first half of the season, apparently then contracted swine flu and has since been attempting to secure a swift release to any club who will take him. He seems destined to see out the campaign in Greece with Larissa. Not one of your finer moves, Walter.

Lafferty is an even more interesting case. Presumably Rangers’ need means he will be involved at some point tomorrow, the Northern Irishman then finding himself under the typical scrutiny that now surrounds him. Much of the criticism of the 22-year-old has been needlessly personal but, having commanded a £3.5 million transfer fee and a lucrative contract when arriving from Burnley, he badly needs to kick-start his Rangers career. Lafferty has failed to convince onlookers of his worth either as a left-sided midfielder or a striker, a matter Smith could do with him remedying imminently.

Celtic, it must be noted, have their injury problems. Shaun Maloney, Danny Fox, Scott Brown and Scott McDonald are among those to whom Mowbray cannot turn as he seeks three valuable points at St Johnstone on Sunday. Nonetheless, and even taking into account the manager’s decision to let Gary Caldwell and Barry Robson depart the club already this month, Celtic’s selection concerns somehow seem less acute than their city rivals.

Mowbray’s assistant, Mark Venus, offered the rather scathing remark on Monday that Celtic have problems “in both boxes”. The pair can take some light relief, perhaps, from the fact Smith has a difficulty in fielding a team, let alone criticising them.

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• Del Potro beats Germany’s Mayer in four sets
• Nadal made to work but is through, as is Roddick

Juan Martín Del Potro survived a lapse of concentration in the second set to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open. The US Open champion beat Germany’s Florian Mayer in four sets – 6-3, 0-6, 6-4, 7-5 – in two and a half hours.

Del Potro was keen to avoid another five-setter after going the distance against James Blake in the second round. And he regained his composure in the third set, serving solidly, and seemed untroubled by his injured wrist.

The world No5 will play Marin Cilic or Stanislas Wawrinka on Sunday for a place in the quarter-finals.

Rafael Nadal was made to work for his win against Philipp Kohlschreiber but eventually beat the German No27 seed 6-4, 6-2, 2-6, 7-5. Nadal had beaten Kohlschreiber five times before today’s match with three of those wins coming in straight sets. However, those games were all on clay and Kohlschreiber has always made a match of it on hard court.

Andy Roddick has also reached the fourth round after a 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 win over Spain’s Feliciano López, an opponent he has never lost against. The American will next face Chile’s Fernando González after the 11th seed defeated Kazakhstan’s Evgeny Korolev in five sets.

“He [González] is a very dangerous player,” Roddick told Reuters. “Some days he comes out, looks like he’s playing ping pong the way he can sling the ball around. I think I’m going to have to keep serving the way that I have been, kind of try to control the pace of the match with my first serve. We’ll see.”

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• Essien returned from Africa Cup of Nations with knee injury
• Midfielder set to miss games against Arsenal and Inter

Chelsea have announced that the midfielder Michael Essien will be out of action for up to six weeks after returning from the Africa Nations Cup with a knee injury.

Essien, 27, sustained the injury in training while on international duty at the tournament in Angola. The Ghana player arrived back at the club’s Cobham training ground this week and Chelsea’s medical staff carried out an examination of the affected knee.

It is a big blow for Chelsea and their manager, Carlo Ancelotti, who will be hugely concerned at the prospect of being without the dynamic midfielder, in particular for the games against Arsenal on 7 February and against Internazionale and José Mourinho at San Siro on 24 February.

Ancelotti had been resigned to Essien’s absence until the Arsenal game. Although Chelsea were publicly comfortable with their midfielder’s participation in Angola, his involvement still represented something of a surprise given that he had not played since tearing a hamstring against Apoel Nicosia in the Champions League in early December and had resumed full training only on 6 January.

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• Stade Français prop banned until April 2011
• One of two incidents involving French players against Ulster

David Attoub of Stade Français is to appeal against the 70-week ban he was given for eye gouging during a Heineken Cup match against Ulster last month, European Rugby Cup Ltd has confirmed.

The French prop was punished this week for making contact with the eye or eye area of the flanker Stephen Ferris during Ulster’s 23-13 victory over Stade in Belfast on 12 December. The 28-year-old Attoub is currently suspended until 22 April 2011. An independent appeal committee will be appointed as soon as practicable. Attoub has been quoted as saying he is “traumatised” by the ban.

Jeff Blackett, the independent judicial officer who imposed the suspension, decided Attoub’s offence was at the top end in terms of the level of seriousness. Blackett described it as “the worst act of contact with the eyes I have had to deal with”.

Julien Dupuy, Attoub’s Stade team-mate, had already been banned for 24 weeks by Blackett for a gouging offence in the same match, also on Ferris. Dupuy had his suspension reduced by one week on appeal, but the France scrum-half remains sidelined until May.

Stade, meanwhile, will reach this season’s Heineken Cup quarter-finals as Pool Four winners if they collect a minimum of one point from their game against Edinburgh at Murrayfield tomorrow.

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• Coyle says Gallas showed no malice in the challenge
• ‘But there is no doubt that it was badly mistimed’

The Bolton Wanderers’ manager Owen Coyle has admitted that likening William Gallas’s tackle on Mark Davies to an “assault” was “a bit strong” and accepts the Arsenal defender showed no malice in the challenge.

Davies was taken off on a stretcher after the Frenchman’s late tackle during Bolton’s 4-2 defeat at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday night, which left the midfielder with ankle ligament damage.

The challenge, which led to Arsenal’s equaliser in a game Wanderers had been winning 2-0, went unpunished by the referee, Alan Wiley, and Gallas is unlikely to face disciplinary action from the Football Association.

Coyle likened the tackle to an assault in a post-match interview but today indicated he did not think Gallas intended to hurt Davies. “Maybe [to say] an assault was a bit strong,” he said.

“But he certainly caught the lad. I don’t think that any professional, and I would certainly hope not, goes to purposely hurt another player, but it was mistimed – there is no doubt that it was badly mistimed.

“Mark Davies paid the price for that and we did as a team because with a player lying on the ground, they have scored an equaliser.”

Asked for his reaction to Gallas escaping censure from the FA, Coyle said: “That’s up to the FA, but it won’t result in us getting any points from the game. They are the powers that be and they decide what happens and what doesn’t happen.”

It is not yet known for how long Davies is likely to be out of action, although the 21-year-old will definitely miss Bolton’s FA Cup fourth-round tie against Sheffield United at the Reebok Stadium tomorrow.

“Thankfully it’s not broken but there is ligament damage there and it will certainly rule him out of this weekend,” Coyle said.

“We’ll be giving him extensive round-the-clock treatment and he was terrific the other night with his performance levels so he’s a player we would like back in our squad as quickly as possible.

“We’ll see what the weekend brings, but he’s a young lad and a quick healer, I’m led to believe.”

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The latest news and best bets in our daily horse racing blog, plus the climax of our weekly tipping competition

Today’s best bets, by Will Hayler

Having ridden his 1,000th British winner at Taunton yesterday, Timmy Murphy takes a deserved day off this afternoon. It says a lot about the expectations we have of our modern-day champions that such an achievement is not the main headline on every sports page today. The likes of McCoy and Johnson have raised the bar to a whole new level.

Murphy misses the ride on Diamond Harry tomorrow, when the horse will make his chasing debut at Haydock, in order to ride Well Chief in Ascot’s Victor Chandler. That won’t have been his decision – he is retained by Well Chief’s owner, David Johnson – and there must be every chance that Diamond Harry will make him wish he wasn’t watching from a weighing room in Berkshire.

Isle De Maurice (4.15) looks a solid each-way wager at 4-1 at Lingfield this afternoon. Gary Moore has always had the knack for improving a horse from another stable and this one joined him from Di Grissell after failing to reach his reserve at the sales last summer. A promising first start for Moore in October was followed by a good second over today’s course and distance and a win over hurdles since has confirmed the horse to be in fine heart. He must go well again today and it looks interesting that stablemate Prince Charlemagne is fairly weak in the early trading on the betting exchanges.

Turf Time (5.05) looks a decent bet at 5-2 to beat a very modest bunch of rivals at Wolverhampton. Second-favourite Exceed Power looks the type to snatch defeat from the jaws of any victory, while the remainder have no recent form to muster between them. Turf Time has found a new degree of consistency in recent starts, finishing placed in a couple of handicaps at Southwell before winning at this track on Monday. He has a 6lb penalty to carry here, but that is negated by the booking of a good 5lb-claiming apprentice.

At Catterick, Tilt (2.55) ought to appreciate moving up in trip to three miles and a bit. He has always been a talented performer on the Flat (albeit a moody one, who refused to leave the stalls in two of his last three runs) and he just keeps galloping. The worry is that he raced with the choke out for the first mile on his hurdling debut and, if he does the same here, even his stamina reserves may prove insufficient. That said, I’m prepared to take the chance because, if Keith Mercer can get him reasonably settled in the early stages, he should prove too good for market rival Milans Man.

Tipping competition, day five

Cairo nipped to the front with a 9-2 winner yesterday but leviticus67 has roared up into a close second, thanks to 12-1 Ours at Southwell. Even more progress was made by Shrewdette, who struck out over the first three days but had both those winners yesterday and is suddenly in contention.

For today’s thrilling climax, we’d like your tips, please, for these races: 2.20 Catterick, 3.30 Catterick, 3.45 Lingfield.

This week’s prize is a copy of Eclipse by Nicholas Clee, the much-praised story of one of the most brilliant racehorses in the history of our sport. It’s “the story of a rank outsider who went on to become a national celebrity; and of the horse that became a national icon, and whose influence is transcendent 200 years later,” says the blurb.

As ever, our champion will be the tipster who returns the best profit to notional level stakes of £1 at starting price on our nominated races, of which there will be three each day up until Friday. Non-runners count as losers. If you have not yet joined in, you are welcome to do so today, but you must start on -12.

For terms and conditions click here.

Good luck!

Standings after day four

Cairo +13.50

leviticus67 +13

Brochdoll +10.88

Smidster +10

Shrewdette +6.50

Viejo +2.88

cloudy75 +1.50

fatdeano +0

Harchibald -0.12

notgethithatonharry -1

MillieJ -1

chris1623 -1

sangfroid -3

SussexRH -4

TheVic -4.50

hawkins12 -4.50

millreef –4.62

TeddyFrost –5.62

tiznow -6

Moscow08 -6.50

chiefhk -7.50

goofs -7.50

coma88 -7.50

Gogledd -7.50

keepitdusty -7.50

sandiuk -7.50

emmapathak -7.50

slackdad38 -9

mike65ie -9.12

johnny909 -9.12

xwireman -9.12

tom1977 -12

melonk -12

gashead1105 -12

Renzofan -12

FinsburyPark -12

suckzinclee -12

JDK1 -12

diegoisgod -12

WalthamstowLad -12

Harrytheactor -12

lasramblas -12

johne5knuckle -12

MatthewHargreaves -12

23skidoo -12

zanno -12

Touche1 -12

Click here for all the day’s racecards, form, stats and results.

Click here for today’s latest odds.

And post your racing-related comments below.

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The story of the legendary trainer’s 60 extraordinary years in boxing should be one to relish

They’re going to make a film of Lou Duva’s life. I can’t wait. Love or hate the grizzly old pug (and plenty do both – often at the same time), Duva, who will be 88 soon, has seen just about everything worth seeing in the fight game, and maybe a lot he wishes he hadn’t, over the past 60 years and more.

The producer will be John Edmonds Kozma, who got a kick-start in showbiz when he made the video for George Michael’s Careless Whisper, and has gone on to do films and documentaries across a broad spectrum, including a trilogy on motor sport.

If he is faithful to the facts, Kozma has rich material to work with. I interviewed Duva a few years ago in his gym in Paterson, New Jersey, when researching a book on boxing and the Mob. I ran out of tape.

Not always the easiest guy to get along with, Duva is a walking treasure trove of stories. He brawled as a kid in Little Italy, got kicked out of the army for belting a couple of officers at training camp in Jackson, Mississippi, who were harassing a black woman (and that was in the race-riddled 40s). He won 15 out of 22 fights as a pro then earned a living driving a truck. He sold his fleet and became a major fight face.

The rest of the story panned out over the decades, during which he trained or managed some of the best, including the late Joey Giardello, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Pernell Whitaker, Mike McCallum, Michael Moorer and a swag of others.

Looking back on the fading days of the 1950s in the Garden, as gangsters strangled the sport nearly to death, Lou recalled his experiences in the salad days of Frankie Carbo and his friends. “I never had any problem with him,” he told me. “I know he was real close with Rocky [Marciano], I know he backed Rocky up in his restaurant over there on Madison Avenue. But I tell you something, as much as you say they were Mob guys or they were guys who had connections, in a way it was even better at that time.” They kept people in line, reckoned Lou.

His favourite period was just after the war. “The era that I liked, where you really had to show what you were all about, was maybe from the 40s on, when I was boxing amateur and I forged my birth certificate from 17 to 18 so I could get into the army, and when I did all those things. I learned what life is all about. Those were the tough times, the real times, as far as I’m concerned.”

Much of the rest of it, he reckons, has been “bullshit”. TV, says Lou with no nod to irony, killed boxing in the 50s. He did OK by it in the 80s, 90s, mind you, and, occasionally, even now. He’s still punching.

After all this, he can say with some authority, “Boxing is a good sport but it’s a tough sport. If you want to see good there’s a lot of good in this business. If you want to see bad there’s a lot of bad guys in this sport.”

Spoken like a true pragmatist. I hope the movie gets Lou Duva right.

Good guy Berto

How decent a human being is Andre Berto?

He was due to defend his WBC welterweight title against Shane Mosley in a major, money-making fight on HBO next Saturday, and more riches beckoned. Berto, if he got past Mosley, had Floyd Mayweather Jr on his radar. Maybe even Manny Pacquiao.

There was no given those fights would happen, but he was in the mix. Not now. Berto has walked away from the Mosley fight to be with his people in Haiti, ripped to the point of desolation by nature, and a human tragedy that unfolds by the day.

Berto’s parents emigrated to the United States from Haiti when he was a kid, and he’s lost a lot of relatives in the earthquake. He told Tampa Bay Online how his sister survived but will be haunted forever by the images and sounds of death. “At night, she walks the streets. She can still hear the voices of people in the rubble.” Walking away from the fight wasn’t easy, he said, “but then again I know I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep good at night if I didn’t make the decision that I made.”

Cynics will say it’s the only decision he could make. But he made it. He did the right thing. And he deserves recognition for that.

Who cares any more?

I know Joshua Clottey will be a tough test, and a more entertaining opponent, for Pacquiao in Texas on 13 March than Mayweather would have been, but I’m struggling to care. It has been such an anti-climax to see the original fight blown out for all the wrong reasons, then listen to Bob Arum big-up this substitute gig as if it were the Rumble In The Jungle.

I’m still thinking it was overwhelmingly Mayweather’s fault that it is not happening. He wasn’t ready, so he “punked out”, as the Americans say, dreaming up a drugs story that just isn’t there. Now he fights Mr Nobody for The Championship of So What. And I couldn’t care about that one either. What a waste of two great talents.

When they do fight – as is inevitable – I will get excited again. I think Mayweather will win. And that’s not the result I want, deep down, because I think he has a lot to answer for.

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Injury has ruined the Italian’s first season at Anfield first season but he is back and so are Liverpool

The mention of senior players and responsibility remains a sensitive issue around Anfield but the response of every ­Liverpool player to his clarion call surely enriched the precious victory over Tottenham Hotspur for Rafael Benítez.

It was a night when the maligned received rapturous ovations from the Liverpool faithful, Philipp Degen, Sotirios Kyrgiakos and, on recent evidence, Dirk Kuyt chief among them, while others strengthened the manager’s conviction that his team must and can improve. Into that category falls Alberto Aquilani.

Liverpool’s £20m summer signing from Roma made only his third Premier League start on Wednesday and was indicative of the transformation between the FA Cup exit to Reading and the spirited shift that defeated Harry Redknapp’s brittle side on the same ground one week later.

Injury and Benítez’s subsequent protection policy have taken a toll on the initial enthusiasm that follows any big-money capture, and Aquilani accepts he is a long way from meeting the standard required. Tottenham, however, may well have represented a breakthrough.

The Italy international admitted: “I knew that I wouldn’t be able to play straight away because of the ankle injury I had when I signed. Ideally, I would have been able to start playing in a team that was winning matches. Instead, by the time I was fit to play, the team was going through a difficult period, so the ­transition has been a lot harder.

“That’s football and the risks are the same with any move. But as a foreign player, moving to a new country in a new league with different team-mates, it would have been easier for me if I was starting my Liverpool career in a winning team. It hasn’t been that way, so the pressure has been on me to produce performances straight away. When I have played, though, I know I can do a lot, lot better.”

With Fernando Torres, Steven ­Gerrard and Yossi Benayoun sidelined, and in the wake of the Reading defeat, there were fewer allowances for Aquilani in what Benítez had declared was a “make or break” game against Tottenham. And, despite doubts over his physical condition prompting a return to the substitutes bench at Stoke City last Saturday, the midfielder is adamant he can have a major role in Liverpool’s pursuit of fourth place this season.

Aquilani added: “Some people may think that I will find the pace of the game in the Premier League very quick. I understand that some great players who have done well in Serie A have come here in the past and struggled. At the moment, I am regaining my fitness after a long time away from football.

“It will take me a while to get to a level I am happy with and I don’t think I’m that far away. The manager has explained to me in detail what he wants me to do for the team. When every player is fit, including me, I think it will bring the best from me and the best from the 11 players we have out on the pitch.”

The importance of the occasion was lost on no one inside Anfield, with Redknapp conceding his team had missed “a great opportunity” in the race for a Champions League place irrespective of complaints over Jermain Defoe’s disallowed goal early in the second half. Benítez’s post-match message that Tottenham, Manchester City and Aston Villa must accept they have Liverpool for company in their ­private ­competition for fourth was, as with his pre-match warning, seized upon by his players.

As Degen noted: “It was an important victory for everyone at the club; the ­players, the staff, the manager and the fans. ­Everyone knows that we can close down fourth place. We all did well, worked hard and that was the least we could do.

“Everyone knows that we haven’t played well this season but the team is closer now, we are working hard and we want to make sure we give the fans some success. Every player knows what we are fighting for and we aren’t going to give fourth place away.”

Wednesday marked the highlight of a disappointing Liverpool career so far for the Swiss full-back, who was among those up for sale this month until injuries offered opportunity as an unorthodox midfielder.

“I am a footballer with heart and I live to play football,” said Degen. “All the time I was out I kept believing that I could come back. I wanted to fight to show that I could play here and I think everyone knows that I don’t give up. It doesn’t matter what has happened in the past. I just had to wait for my chance to give my best. I hope I have done that now.”

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• Kim Clijsters loses 6-0, 6-1 to the world No19 Nadia Petrova
• US Open champion seemed distracted in worst-ever defeat

Kim Clijsters crashed out of the Australian Open today, losing 6-0, 6-1 to the world No19 Nadia Petrova. The Russian had never beaten Clijsters before in their four meetings and will now play either the third seed, Svetlana Kuznetsova, or the qualifier Angelique Kerber in the fourth round.

Clijsters, who won the US Open in September in only her third tournament back from two years off to get married and have a baby, seemed distracted as she won only five points in an 18-minute first set in her third-round match at the Australian Open.

It barely got better in the second set, when she held serve only once and managed to make it last 52 minutes, saving two match points. The loss ends any chance of a Clijsters quarter-final match-up with fellow comeback Belgian Justine Henin, who advanced to the fourth round earlier on the day with a three-set win over Alisa Kleybanova.

The magnitude of the defeat was astonishing given that Clijsters had beaten Henin in a three-set final at an Australian Open tune-up event at the Brisbane International on 9 January. The lopsided scoreline would rank among her worst. She only won four games in a 6-0, 6-4 loss to Henin in the 2003 French Open final.

Earlier in the day, Henin had staged another memorable comeback to advance in her first grand slam out of retirement with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 win over world No27 Kleybanova.

Other results

Jie Zheng (Chn) bt (11) Marion Bartoli (Fr) 5-7 6-3 6-0

Maria Kirilenko (Rus) bt Roberta Vinci (It) 7-5 7-6 (7-4)

Yanina Wickmayer (Bel) bt Sara Errani (Ita) 6-1 6-7 (4-7) 6-3

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• Rangers striker’s contract runs out in the summer
• It could ‘be possible to do some business’, says McLeish

Birmingham’s manager, Alex McLeish, has confirmed his interest in signing the Rangers striker Kris Boyd. McLeish said it could “be possible to do some business” regarding the Scotland international.

It is understood McLeish would be keen for Boyd to sign a pre-contract deal with Birmingham before the January transfer window closes.

The Rangers striker, who broke Henrik Larsson’s all-time SPL goals record of 158 when he netted five in a 7-1 rout of Dundee United last month, is also reportedly wanted by Aston Villa and Hull City.

Boyd, who has scored 19 goals this season, is out of contract in the summer. The 26-year-old joined Rangers in 2006 after six seasons with Kilmarnock.

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