Saturday, February 21, 2015

14 / 28

14 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2015 SPORTS THE STAR
MANCHESTER (AP):
Five weeks after his
big-money transfer to
Manchester City, Wilfried
Bony is ready to play his
first match for the English
champions and give man-
ager Manuel Pellegrini a
selection dilemma up front.
Bony became one of the most
expensive African players of all
time when he joined City from
Swansea for a reported £28 mil-
lion (US$43 million) last month.
However, his involvement in
the African Cup of Nations with
Ivory Coast – the winner of the
tournament – meant City has had
to bide its time before playing
the Premier League’s most expen-
sive signing in the winter transfer
window.
That moment should arrive
when Newcastle visits Etihad
Stadium for a match that second-
place City cannot afford to lose if
it is to stay in realistic contention
of catching Chelsea, which holds
a seven-point lead with 13
games remaining.
Pellegrini may be tempted to
start Bony, given the striker has
scored three goals in his last two
games against Newcastle.
City has won only one of its
last four league games at home,
helping Chelsea pull clear again
after having an eight-point lead
wiped out by the champions this
season.
Chelsea is at home to relegation-
threatened Burnley, while the
weekend’s standout match sees
Southampton host Liverpool –
two teams fighting for Champions
League qualification.
After two months playing in
central midfield, Wayne Rooney
reverted to his usual position as
a forward for the FA Cup match
against Preston on Monday.
He found the net – albeit from
the penalty spot – to end a nine-
game streak without scoring, but
he might find himself back in
midfield for United’s trip to
Swansea today as striker Robin
van Persie is fit after an unspeci-
fied injury.
Tim Sherwood officially takes
charge of his first game as man-
ager of Aston Villa today in its
home game against Stoke. Villa
has dropped into the bottom
three and is on a five-match los-
ing run.
Four points separate fourth-
place Southampton and seventh-
place Liverpool when they meet
at St Mary’s Stadium tomorrow.
Fifth-place Arsenal is at Crystal
Palace, and sixth-place Tottenham
hosts West Ham.
Selection dilemma
for Man City
Manchester City’s Wilfried Bony
LONDON (AP):
Chelsea are planning to invite the black man who was abused by
its supporters at a French metro station to a Champions League
game against Paris Saint-Germain this week at their London sta-
dium, for the return leg.
The offer came as Chelsea manager José Mourinho discussed the
Paris incident for the first time, saying yesterday: “I feel ashamed with
being connected with these sad things.”
A group of Chelsea fans were filmed stopping the man from board-
ing a Paris metro train on Tuesday and then chanting: “We’re racist
and that’s the way we like it.”
“We feel very sorry about it,” Mourinho said at Chelsea’s training
ground. “We want to fight it. We feel ashamed and we want to apol-
ogise to the gentleman.”
The man has been identified as Souleymane S. by Le Parisien
newspaper.
“We are writing to Souleymane,” Chelsea spokesman Steve Atkins
said during Mourinho’s press conference. “We are inviting him and
his family as guests to the return leg against Paris Saint-Germain
(next month). We hope he will take up that offer.”
Across London, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who is French,
described the incident before the game as “pathetic and dreadful”,
but said eradicating racism was a wider issue.
“(It is) society’s problem,” Wenger said. “More intelligent people
than myself think about that and nobody has found a miraculous
solution. It certainly starts from childhood education and an open-
minded attitude.
Chelsea to invite
black man attacked
by fans to game
Mourinho