Ronaldinho returns to Brazil

Former AC Milan forward Ronaldinho has signed for Brazilian club Flamengo until 2014, the 30-year-old confirmed on Monday.

The 2002 World Cup winner with Brazil, Ronaldinho fell out of favour at the Serie A club, and has signed with Flamengo for an estimated US$900,000 a month, he confirmed on his personal website.

Ronaldinho began his career with Gremio as a teenager, before stints with Ligue 1 side Paris Saint-Germain, Spanish giants Barcelona, Milan and most recently a return home to Brazil with Flamengo.

Flamengo president Patricia Amorim also confirmed the signing of the high-profile player.

“This is a very special day for Flamengo. Flamengo can finally celebrate, Ronaldinho is ours,” Amorim said.

The Brazilian superstar was on the verge of joining his former side Gremio, so much so the club organised a party to celebrate his homecoming, but more demands from both Ronaldinho and AC Milan stopped the deal.

Ronaldinho is following in the footsteps of Ronaldo and Adriano, both former national team-mates of the Flamengo signing, and have all returned to Brazil to reinvigorate their careers.

Emerton relishing Rovers´ return

Australian international Brett Emerton said he hoped to face a battle for first-team action at Blackburn when he returns from the Asian Cup.

Emerton provided assists to both Everton’s Tim Cahill and AZ Alkmaar’s Brett Holman in Australia’s 4-0 win over India in their Cup opener on Monday.

He said before the kick-off in Qatar that he wants to fight for his place in the Rovers starting line-up when he returns to England.

“Hopefully when I come back I am struggling to get a place in the side, that means we will have done well,” the midfielder said.

“With the January transfer window and a lot of the boys coming back from injury, hopefully there will be a battle for me to get back in the side.”

“Obviously we always welcome fresh faces and new talent. As a group of players we want to be the best we can be and finish as high up the table as we can.”

Emerton said he hoped manager Steve Kean could use the funds from owners Venky’s to buy fresh talent in the January transfer window, to help boost them from ninth placing on the English Premier League table.

“If we can have the addition of a couple of players who can strengthen our squad then all of us should welcome that,” the 31-year-old said.

“Competition is always healthy within a squad and I think you need that to succeed. Otherwise you can get a little bit lazy and you need to be looking over your shoulder to make sure you play well every week.”

Should Australia make the Asian Cup final, Emerton could return to action with Rovers on February 2 when Tottenham visit Ewood Park.

The hardest ever caretaker manager job!

With all the managerial changes, one that has gone largely unnoticed is the sacking of Roy Keane from Ipswich. I’m not going to dwell on that sacking as it was probably the right move and had become inevitable.

Unenviable

Rather than look at the sacking I would rather discuss the totally unenviable job inherited by caretaker boss Ian McParland. You really have to feel sorry for him.

McParland stepped up to take the role with Ipswich sitting in a terribly disappointing nineteenth place in the Championship only three points above the drop zone. They have one only one of their last nine league games and confidence amongst the players was at rock bottom.

Experienced

The forty-nine year old Scot has only experienced management at one other club and that was Notts County where he was the manager for two years until the ill fated Sven Goran Eriksson take over at the club. He has been a coach at Nottingham Forest and has been assistant to Roy Keane since November 2009. He stepped into the breach when Keane was sacked last Friday.

His first task was to take his beleaguered team to Stamford Bridge for a ridiculously tough third round FA Cup tie against Chelsea. You could say that he had nothing to lose, but it was hardly a game for the temporary boss to be able to make his mark.

Battled

As it turned out his Ipswich side battled well until the thirty-third minute when two goals in a minute knocked the stuffing out of them. Chelsea then used the rest of the game to try to build some confidence and get their big players scoring goals again. They did just that and ran out 7-0 winners.

After the game McParland tried to remain positive.

Pride

“The boys are a bit shell-shocked, with the manager going. For half an hour, we were doing okay, we were in the game but we gave them three bad goals. I’ve never been beaten like that. It hurts my pride but I’ll bounce back. Let’s not forget who the lads were playing against. Some Premier League clubs were beaten seven or eight here last year, so maybe we’re in good company.”

His pride was hurt but at least it couldn’t get any worse. Yesterday news arrived that Ipswich had appointed former Bradford, Wigan and Derby boss Paul Jewell as their new manager. It isn’t known whether McParland will stay on the staff but it seems unlikely as a new man usually brings in his own people.

Disastrous

It was also announced that Jewell wouldn’t be taking over the role until after Ipswich’s game on Wednesday evening. McParland will be in charge for that game as well as the one against Chelsea. He will have a tenure of just two matches. Let’s hope that the second game isn’t as disastrous as the first one was.

Who are Ipswich playing? Arsenal.

The second and final game of Ian McParland’s short spell of management is the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final against the Premier League’s third placed team and second top scorers.

Daunting

After that game McParland will hand over to Jewell who will face games against Millwall and Doncaster. Doesn’t sound quite as daunting does it?

I’m sure McParland is enjoying his short spell in the spotlight but I doubt if any caretaker manager has ever had such a hard spell in charge. For a struggling Championship team to take on those two sides at the best of times would be asking close to the impossible but in these circumstances, it is even more difficult than that.

I wish him well on Wednesday because unless his pride is to take another knock he will need every piece of luck going.

Bresciano move to Genoa blocked

Mark Bresciano’s hopes of a move away from Lazio have taken a turn for the worse with Genoa president Enrico Preziosi ruling out a loan deal.
While Lazio had earlier said that Genoa might want a loan deal for the Socceroos miedfielder, Preziosi said while his club were interested, they needed to find a striker.
“Bresciano is a player who interests us, but we would not know where to put him,” Preziosi told a local radio station. “At the moment our priority is the attacker and we can not wait for that.”
The Rossoblu are 13th in Serie A, five points out of the relegation zone. The president said his team would rather pursue Wigan Athletic striker Mauro Boselli as a replacement for Luca Toni, while striker Giuseppe Sculli’s future is also up in the air.
“I like Boselli,” the president said. “He is an interesting player in perspective.”
“We want to dismantle the old house and rebuild another that can give satisfaction to our fans, not to repeat the mistakes.”
It was thought Lazio’s interest in Sculli might see Bresciano go to Genoa, but Preziosi’s comments appear to rule that out.
Bresciano has endured a frustrating time with the Rome-based club after moving from Palermo in the off-season.
The 30-year-old, who ruled himself out of playing for Australia at the Asian Cup, has played just 239 minutes of football for the season and started just twice.