adminCape Town — Everton midfielder and former Bafana Bafana captain Steven Pienaar was mistakenly called “penis” by English pundit, Mark Lawrenson.
The legendary Liverpool defender found himself calling Pienaar “penis” in error while acting as an analyst on BBC’s Match of the Day over weekend, which saw the return of “Schillo” in Everton’s famous blue and white.
Lawrenson was part of Liverpool’s successful sides in the 1980s and won 12 trophies in his seven-year stay at the club.
Pienaar has been sidelined for several months with niggling injuries, but returned to action to help coach Roberto Martinez’s charges to a 2-0 win over Dagenham and Redbridge in their FA Cup third round encounter.
Aroune Kone netted a well taken headed goal from a Kevin Miralles free-kick and the Belgian then doubled Everton’s lead with a spot-kick after he was fouled in the penalty area.
Meanwhile, Pienaar will be hoping to be in Martinez’s match-day squad today as Everton travel to Manchester City for an English Premiership encounter.
The two teams are coping very differently with English football’s high-intensity mid-season fixture programme.
While Arsenal could afford to make five changes as they breezed past Sunderland in the FA Cup on Saturday, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp’s decision to field a youthful starting XI at fourth-tier Exeter City on Friday almost backfired as his side scraped a 2-2 draw.
First-team regulars like Mesut Ozil, Aaron Ramsey and Per Mertesacker will come back into the Arsenal team at Anfield and right-back Hector Bellerin believes such strength in depth bodes well for the months ahead.
“The legs are fine and we’ve shown that we’ve very good players on the bench also and the rotation helps us get good results,” said the Spaniard, who set up goals for Ramsey and Olivier Giroud in the 3-1 success against Sunderland.
“We’ve a lot of games and they’re all hard games, but we’ve to respond in the way we did (against Sunderland) and I’m sure we will be fine.
“The team was up to the challenge. We didn’t rush the games and we knew we had to be patient. It’s nice to get the three goals and that’s confidence for the team as we had a difficult week ahead.”
Klopp can only envy the riches at Arsenal counterpart Arsene Wenger’s disposal as he contemplates an injury list that currently features 11 senior players.
Seven of those – including playmaker Philippe Coutinho, striker Daniel Sturridge and centre-backs Dejan Lovren and Martin Skrtel – have hamstring problems, but Klopp has dismissed suggestions that his hard-running playing style is to blame.— Supersport.
Online Reporter