Try Totel Football’s six-a-side real money game for Sunday’s Premier League matches and get a free £5 to use on any other real money game

With two huge games taking place in the Premier League on Sunday there’s never been a better time to try out Totel Football’s six-a-side fantasy football game.

The game is essentially the same as the full squad game many of you play on a weekly basis in the Goal.com league but instead you pick just one goalkeeper, two defenders, two midfielders and a striker, plus two substitutes. There’s a cash prize to the top performing teams too.

As a special offer to celebrate this superb day of Premier League action, Totel Football will give any customer who places a £5 bet on their Super Sunday league another £5 free bet to be used in any other real money game on the site.

So entry into Sunday’s game could also give you a chance to win part of the £800 prize pool in next week’s 11-a-side game.

In order to claim the free bet users must place a post on the discussion board including the tag: #bet5get5.

Sunday’s first match sees Manchester City make the trip to White Hart Lane to face a Tottenham side who look likely to be missing their star man, Gareth Bale, who is unlikely to recover in time to face the champions.

Without Bale in the side other midfielders may be asked to step up and score the goals that the Wales international has so often contributed for Andre Villas-Boas’ men this season. Clint Dempsey and Gylfi Sigurdsson are both available for selection.

Roberto Mancini’s men have a great record against Spurs in recent years, having claimed victory in the last four matches, and the last meeting between the two at White Hart Lane ended in a 5-1 win thanks to four goals from Edin Dzeko, who may well feature in this match due to an injury to Sergio Aguero.

The Bosnia international has often had to settle for a place on the substitutes bench but he has still scored regularly and averaging over five points per game thanks to 12 goals and two assists. Will you include him in your team on Sunday?

The second match sees the return of Rafael Benitez to Anfield as he takes his Chelsea side to face former employers Liverpool.

Both sides need three points as they aim to qualify for Europe and Brendan Rodgers will want to see a significant improvement in finishing from his team after consecutive 0-0 draws in the league.

Despite drawing a blank in those matches, Luis Suarez still has the best points average of any striker in Totel Football this season: the Uruguay international has 22 goals in the current campaign and is capable of big points hauls as he demonstrated recently against Wigan, notching 27 points.

Fernando Torres has had no problem scoring in the Europa League of late and the newly-masked forward will look to find the net for the first time in the Premier League since scoring in the 8-0 mauling of Aston Villa on 23rd December.

The goals came from the defence on Wednesday night as David Luiz (15 points) and John Terry (21 points) rewarded players who’d selected them in their team.

Whoever you’re selecting this weekend, don’t forget to visit the discussion board on the homepage and post your message including #bet5get5 to be credited with your free £5 bet.

Anyone without a Totel Football account can sign up here

The Chelsea skipper praises the Reds manager, who previously managed the Blues’ reserves and academy, for his help while working under former coach Jose Mourinho

Chelsea captain John Terry has praised Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers, enthusing that he always knew that the Ulsterman would be a coaching success.

The now-Reds boss took charge of the Blues’ reserve side and academy between 2004 and 2008 before departing to start his career as a first-team manager.

“I know Brendan very well,” Terry told reporters. “He is a great manager and was brilliant for me and some of the other players. I can only speak highly of him.

“There were many ways he helped me. When Jose [Mourinho] was there, he was always around. A couple of times I was left out of the side or injured and he’d pull me to one side. He did a nice little video of me scoring goals, making tackles and had a 15-20 minute chat with me.

“At the time it was something nobody had ever done and it just goes to show his man-management and how well he’s doing and how well he’ll do in the future.

“It’s little things like that which, as a player, really give you a boost when you’re down. He was a real gentleman.

“I was 100 per cent sure [he would make it as a manager]. He was around quite a lot, fed off Jose and obviously learnt a lot from him.

“You could see he had it in him to go on – his mannerisms around the players, he had a great rapport with the players at the training ground on a daily basis.”

Injury has slowed the extraordinary 18-year-old’s meteoric rise for club and country this season, but the future remains bright for one of England’s most exciting talents

EXCLUSIVE
By Liam Twomey

He may only have played eight times in 2013, his lightning progress hampered by a lingering thigh injury, but it would still be a huge surprise if Raheem Sterling is not among the names revealed to be on the PFA Young Player of the Year shortlist by chief executive Gordon Taylor on Friday.

Even for those not of a Liverpool persuasion, Sterling’s full Premier League debut, against holders Manchester City at Anfield in August, was thrilling. At just 17 years, eight months and eight days, the fearless youngster tormented the usually excellent Pablo Zabaleta with dizzying pace, trickery and awareness, playing the entire 95 minutes.

Such an accomplished display against top opposition provided a fitting introduction for many to a special talent, and Sterling remembers it fondly. “It was probably my best performance,” he tells Goal.com. “Purely because it was my first game, with so much pressure and against last season’s champions. I was proud of myself afterwards.

RAHEEM POWER
STERLING’S SEASON SO FAR
GAMES PLAYED GOALS ASSISTS	37 2 3

“Before the game, [Steven] Gerrard told me it was just an older version of the under-18s. He said not to worry about it and just to go out there and give my best, so that’s what I did.”

In the weeks that followed, Sterling quickly established himself as one of the unlikelier key figures in Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool revolution, featuring regularly on the domestic front and in Europe.

“At the start of the season the manager said to all the young players that if we did well in training and had the right commitment and attitude, he wouldn’t be afraid to throw us in, no matter what our age,” he added.

“But I didn’t expect to play so many games. I thought I’d make a few sub appearances. It’s great to be given a chance, and I’ve got to thank the manager. I’m really grateful.”

By the time he scored his first senior goal, the winner against Reading at Anfield in late October, heads were already turning. Both Manchester giants and Arsenal were again linked with the wonderkid they had once tracked in QPR’s youth ranks, but Liverpool had other ideas.

On December 21, three days after his 18th birthday, Sterling signed a new five-year deal, complete with a wage hike which reflected his status as a rapidly developing first-team squad member and, as of a month earlier, the fifth-youngest England debutant in history.

The 4-2 friendly defeat the Three Lions suffered in Stockholm will be remembered by most for a masterful four-goal display from one Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but for Sterling it will forever stick in the mind for different reasons. “It was surprising, really,” he confesses. “I didn’t expect to start, and to be involved in a game like that was a real bonus for me, a real achievement.

“I didn’t really know anyone, but it was a really good atmosphere. Everyone did their bit to make me feel welcome. Wilf [Zaha] was there as well, and they made both of us feel at home.”

Yet after a stunning first five months of the campaign, the dawning of 2013 brought a halt to Sterling’s ascent. Rodgers, fearful of burning out one of his most prized young assets, removed the teenager from his starting XI and even granted him a week’s holiday to recuperate.

Such a decision might have angered many football-mad youngsters, but Sterling is level-headed enough to see the logic. “Playing so many games at such a young age is tough,” he admits. “Old school people say you should just get on with it and stop moaning, but it’s a lot to ask of a young lad to be playing 90 minutes every week, so it’s been good to get a break.”

Liverpool academy director Frank McParland, who grew to know Sterling well before his graduation to the first team, believes Rodgers’ handling of his talented young charge has been inspired. “He was still having good games, so Brendan did really well to see he was tired, even though he’s with him every day,” he told Goal.com.

“It’s very important to look after young players, because to play between 40 and 60 games in your first season would be extraordinary.

“You have to manage them well, and Brendan has done a very good job with Raheem.”

Now only injury is preventing Sterling from shining once more, but he is determined not to risk aggravating his thigh problem by returning to action too soon. “The physios haven’t given me a set date for when I’ll be back, but hopefully I’ll be fully fit for next season,” he reveals. “That’s the main thing for me right now.”

In the long term, McParland is confident Sterling has a bright future for club and country. “I think he can play for Liverpool and England for many years,” he insists.

“The pace is the thing. It’s extraordinary. He’s as quick running with the ball as without the ball. But it’s down to him now. He’s been given the opportunity and played over 30 games in the first team. It’s about how much he wants it and, knowing the boy as I do, I know he does.

“It’s about him doing the right things every day, and about listening to the manager. If he keeps improving and working hard, he’s going to have a fantastic career at Liverpool.”

Raheem Sterling was speaking at the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops II Uprising. Available now to download exclusively on Xbox LIVE, Black Ops II Uprising contains four new multiplayer maps, Magma, Encore, Vertigo and Studio – a remake of “Firing Range” a fan-favourite multiplayer map from the original Call of Duty: Black Ops. The Uprising DLC also features new Zombies map “Mob of the Dead”, set in Alcatraz where mobster prisoners battle to escape the undead.

For more information on Call of Duty: Black Ops II and the new Uprising content visit www.callofduty.com/blackops2.

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