NEWS ROUND-UP

According to the Mirror United are considering a summer bid for Tottenham midfielder Michael Carrick.

John O’Pie is a modern day wonder. He certainly seems able to do an awful lot of talking in between stuffing his face:

“Every time you get a chance to get a run in the team, that's what you have to do. You have to make people open their eyes up and show them you can do a job. You have to take the chance when you get it.”

On Newcastle:

“Sometimes that just happens when you get a new manager, it can bring a bit of freshness to the team. The results have really picked up though and they won’t be an easy game for us.

“They’ve got a talented squad and they probably even now aren’t in the position they would have expected to be in. Although they’ve had a rough season they’ll expect to finish in the top half of the table, and they’ve still got a lot to play for.”

From the Telegraph:

Rangers’ adventure in the Champions League may be over but the club could still have unfinished business with Uefa if the governing body of European football decides to punish them for the attack on the Villarreal team bus in Spain on Tuesday night.

The Scottish champions face an anxious wait to see if Uefa’s official observer includes the incident outside El Madrigal Stadium in his report, which probably would trigger a fine.

The missile that shattered the window of the Villarreal bus as it approached the ground before the second leg of the first knockout round tie was just part of the chaotic scenes before, during and after the match in which the local police — the small town of Vila-real has just 40,000 inhabitants — were unable to cope with the number of Rangers supporters who descended upon it.

Rangers were given an allocation of 3,000 tickets for the segregated section, but probably around 7,000 of the Ibrox club’s fans gained entry to the 22,000-capacity ground, either by using forged tickets made in Glasgow or by buying them from locals in Vilareal. Police made several baton charges on Rangers fans during and after the 1-1 draw, which saw Rangers go out of the competition on the away goals rule.

The gravy train rumbles on in the Sun:

Plans for a massive crackdown on football hooliganism ahead of the World Cup are to be revealed today. The crackdown includes unprecedented co-operation between German and British authorities.

Around 100 police officers from the UK are expected to travel to Germany for the tournament in June and July. And for the first time, a team from the Crown Prosecution Service is also likely to be on hand to assist with evidence-gathering.

It is hoped the presence will avoid an embarrassing repeat of Euro 2004, when British courts refused to impose football banning orders on some deported fans because their convictions in Portugal might have been unsafe.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke will give details of the massive anti-hooliganism operation at a briefing this afternoon. He is expected to announce that a small number of German officers will be stationed at British ports to help screen fans in the run-up to the event.

Administrative changes to speed up the system for imposing football banning orders are also likely to be revealed, as well as updated figures on the number of people currently subject to orders.