Substitute Jobi McAnuff grabbed a last-minute winner that gave Crystal Palace a much-needed victory, easing pressure on the Crystal Palace manager Iain Dowie but left Brighton one place off the bottom. The referee Mick Fletcher, who had controlled this potentially volatile clash well, sent off the Brighton full-back Gary Hart for a second bookable offence on 86 minutes. However, the decision appeared harsh as Hart, who had only been booked moments earlier, seemed to handle accidentally Thereafter, Palace attacked incessantly. One of the worst results of my career,” muttered Harry Redknapp. “With 20 minutes to go I couldn’t see Leeds scoring one, let alone four.”Goals: Pahars (27) 1-0; Quashie (35) 2-0; Quashie pen (45) 3-0; Butler (71) 3-1; Blake (77) (3-2); Healy pen (84) 3-3; Miller (86) 3-4.Southampton (4-4-2): Niemi; Delap, Svensson, Lundekvam (Hajto, 46), Higginbotham ; Oakley, Quashie, Wise (Fuller, 46), Pahars (McCann, 45); Walcott, Ormerod.
The optimists were rewarded two minutes later when Liam Miller, on loan from Manchester United converted Rob Hulse’s pass.”Unbelievable, I don’t know what to say. When Robbie Blake swept in a cross from substitute David Healy six minutes later it crumbled completely. The introduction of Healy had transformed the visitors and his chip tempted Danny Higginbotham into a handball with six minutes to go. Healy scored the resulting penalty himself.”At half-time we were 3-0 down and playing poorly. You’d have to be the eternal optimist to think we could come back from that,” admitted Leeds’ manager Kevin Blackwell.
The 56-year-old, who left Bayern at the end of last season and has not worked since, was quoted in Germany as saying that United had made enquiries about his availability, but that was understood to relate to 2002 when Ferguson had originally planned to retire.Ruud van Nistelrooy was questioned by the Metropolitan police after a Charlton match steward was injured during his goal celebrations among the crowd at the Valley on Saturday. Fifteen minutes later it was game over but with Leeds the unlikely victors.When Paul Butler headed powerfully in from Gary Kelly’s corner in the 71st minute, Southampton’s confidence wavered. The Dutch striker was allowed to join the United squad who left London by train from Euston and it was not clear whether the man was injured directly by Van Nistelrooy or in the excitement around the striker.. In any other walk of life, a gang of young men pulling off a heist as audacious as Leeds United did on Saturday could expect to be banged up for a 10-year stretch. Those present will be talking in hushed tones for years to come of the “Great St Mary’s Robbery”.
A week of high drama on the South Coast started with the abrupt departure of the Saints coach Simon Clifford dominating the headlines. Clifford hit back before the game by suggesting Southampton’s players were “unfit” and prone to “letting games slip in the last five to 10 minutes”. He may have a point.
With 19 minutes of Saturday’s match remaining Saints were strolling at 3-0 up, thanks to first-half goals from Marian Pahars and a double from Nigel Quashie. As a net importer of energy, this is increasingly affecting British prices.Even where energy prices are lower – for instance, gas prices in the Netherlands are less than half what they are in Britain at the moment – it is frequently not possible to access them because transmission is controlled by monopoly suppliers on less than transparent terms. Continental gas supply contracts also tend to be indexed to the price of oil, even though gas is in plentiful supply, causing the price artificially to rise with the cost of the black stuff.All these are good reasons for Mr Wicks to want to shake up the European energy market.
The European Commission itself said in a report published only last week that European directives on gas and electricity market liberalisation were being widely flouted and called on member states urgently to implement them not only in letter, but also in spirit.Don’t hold your breath. It might seem like cutting your own throat to allow high energy prices to continue through support for entrenched monopoly, but some member states don’t see it that way, preferring to protect jobs in established suppliers to creating them elsewhere through free competition.As Continental suppliers grow rich on their captive domestic markets, many of them have used the surplus cash to come shopping over here, buying up the British supply and generator market in a manner which would be virtually impossible almost anywhere else in Europe.It is all very well being a guinea pig in the effectiveness of liberalised utility markets, but there may be a price. After completion of the deal, around two-thirds of Cadbury’s sales will come from its chocolate and sweets brands. The sale is expected to dilute next year’s earnings by about 6 per cent.In the event that Cadbury fails to convince various French workers’ groups to back the deal, it has promised to pay Blackstone and Lion Capital a £63.5bn break-fee – 5 per cent of the transaction price.