Friday, July 31, 2015
Hen party ambushes Manchester City squad as team jets off for Stuttgart friendly
The Manchester City squad got an unlikely welcome as they flew out for their last pre-season friendly today.
The Blues are taking on Stuttgart in their last warm-up game before the new campaign tomorrow, report the Manchester Evening News .
And they got a warm welcome as they arrived at Manchester Airport to board a private jet to Germany earlier this afternoon
A hen party, off to the Dublin for the weekend, also happened to be waiting outside the terminal.
And the girls didn't miss their opportunity to grab some selfies with Vincent Kompany and Aleks Kolarov among the Blues' stars they collared for a chat and some photos.
City are taking a strong squad over for the match, which kicks-off at 8pm UK time, including £44 million summer signing Raheem Sterling.
Edin Dzeko was also on the plane, despite speculation about his future.
And Wilfried Bony has been reunited with his team mates after missing the tour of Australia with illness.
However notable absentees included City's South American quartet Sergio Aguero, Martin Demichelis, Pablo Zabaleta and Fernandinho who have been left at home after competing for their countries in this summer's Copa America.
City kick-off their Premier League campaign at West Brom on Monday August 10.
Teenage mum 'caught with dead baby in shopping bag while shoplifting at Victoria's Secret'
Tiona Rodriguez, 18, is accused of giving birth in secret, murdering her baby boy, then taking a detour to shoplift on the way to dump the body
A teenage mother caught with her dead newborn son in a shopping bag while allegedly shoplifting at Victoria's Secret has been charged with murdering the baby.
Tiona Rodriguez, 18, was stopped on suspicion of stealing a $44.50 pair of skinny jeans from the store in New York's Herald Square store, the New York Daily News reported.
When security searched her bag, they made the grim discovery.
The teenager was today charged with second degree murder over the incident, which happened in 2013.
Prosecutor Rachel Ferrari said Rodriguez "carried out the murder of her newborn infant and then callously shoved him in a bag with the plan of — in her words to ‘take this s**t and dig a hole, put it somewhere, lol, then we go eat IHOP".
The teen mother, from Brooklyn, is thought to have fallen pregnant in early 2013 but believed she would be in "big trouble" if her family found out.
Ferrari said Rodriguez planned to kill the infant and "began plotting weeks before he was born".
When she went into labour on October 16, 2013, she went to a friend's home in Queens where she gave birth in a bath tub "ripping the cord with her bare hands".
The baby boy was full term and weighed 8lbs, prosecutors said.
Ferrari added: "He wasn't stillborn, he didn't die of natural causes. He was murdered in that bathroom."
Rodriguez is then accused of stuffing the baby's body into a shopping bag and setting out to dispose of it.
But she is believed to have made a detour to Victoria Secret in a bid to steal - stuffing items into the same bag that carried her dead son.
Prosecutors revealed Rodriguez had been pregnant twice before and was "well-versed" in hiding her pregnancies and childbirth.
She fell pregnant at 14 and her family only discovered the truth when she was in labour in hospital.
Rodriguez gave birth for the second time in 2012, aged 15. She is believed to have delivered the baby in her bathtub at home.
Prosecutor Ferrari said: "She may have killed the baby, the baby may have been stillborn - but we know that she texted her boyfriend throughout the birth, ultimately telling him - it's dead.
"Then the two of them discussed via text getting rid of it. Smashing it up, so it didn't look like a body. Burning it. Meeting up to bury it."
She told no one after falling pregnant for the third time.
Rodriguez's lawyer Earl Ward argued that both the second and third pregnancies resulted in miscarriages.
He said his client was a "confused young girl who had no idea what to do with the fetus that was stillborn", the Daily News reported.
She was ordered held without bail by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber.
She faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted.
Jose Mourinho has confirmed he has a full squad
Jose Mourinho has confirmed he has a full squad to choose from ahead of Sunday’s Community Shield date with Arsenal at Wembley.
The manager had previously rated Gary Cahill and Diego Costa as doubts following the midweek friendly against Barcelona in America, but believes he now has a full complement available to him.
‘All good,’ he said on Friday afternoon. ‘We are fine. Jet lag is minimal, the travelling was very short, it was a very good pre-season in terms of travelling. We are in London since Wednesday morning, no problem.’
Mourinho was then asked about the fitness of last season’s top scorer, Diego Costa, but reiterated his lack of concern.
‘[We have] three top strikers. If one is injured, we have two. No concerns, no protections. It’s a position where we’re very strong. I’m not worried, match after match, and we have a fantastic group of strikers so no problem.’
One area the manager admitted he would like to strengthen is at left-back, following the departure ofFilipe Luis to Atletico Madrid this week.
‘We have only one, we are trying,’ he said, but refused to discuss the club’s reported interest in Everton defender John Stones, adding: ‘I don’t speak about players from other clubs, especially now competition starts. It starts for us and Arsenal now, and next week for everyone.’
Mourinho had spoken following the Barcelona game in the US about the motivation for Sunday’s fixture, the opportunity to claim silverware always appealing to the manager and his players. He admits, however, that the Community Shield is a strange fixture, neither a friendly nor a truly competitive outing.
‘I think it’s in between,’ he said. ‘It’s not a friendly like against Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain, or Arsenal against Wolfsburg. It’s more than that but less than a Premier League match. We lost against Red Bulls and we’re not happy, so it’s normal we always try to play for a result and the Community Shield has a motivation different from a friendly or summer tournament. It’s the start of competition.’
The Portuguese has famously never lost against Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, an unbeaten record stretching 13 games. Impressive, unquestionably, but not something Mourinho spends time thinking about.
‘I just want my club to get the best possible results. Arsenal doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter the manager, I just want my club to get the best possible results, that’s the only thing that matters,’ he said.
‘In football you can win or lose, or draw, and in this case you have to be ready for everything. I never made my victories over Arsenal an explosion of happiness or special pride. I do not make a drama if one day we lose.’
Mourinho also believes the Gunners can be a title rival in the forthcoming season, though does not attribute it directly to their purchase of Petr Cech from the Blues.
‘I always think they are. They have very good squads,’ he said. ‘In this second period in England, immediately when I arrived two years ago I looked at them as a very good squad with very good players. I think it’s more of the same. They’re a top squad.
‘I think they always had very good goalkeepers, now they have one more, but I never felt weaknesses in their goalkeepers.’
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