Burnley host struggling Grimsby after a 2-2 draw while Reading and Walsall who were goalless first time around meet

Burnley host struggling Grimsby, after a 2-2 draw, while Reading and Walsall, who were goalless first time around, meet at the Madejski Stadium. That’s the way it goes with strikers; you go through a patch without scoring and then get loads.”Coppell added he was confident his side can go to Carrow Road, where Norwich have conceded seven goals in 14 games, and perform well, especially because they were the last side to win there with a 1-0 victory on Boxing Day “We know what to expect, having played them recently. He does an awful lot of work outside the box [but] his season will be judged on his goals to games ratio, which isn’t too good at the moment.”But despite the statistics, Barrett remains confident “I am sure I’m going to bag a hat-trick soon,” he said “I feel sharp. The Brighton manager, Steve Coppell, added: “I feel Graham has got to contribute more in the box. Brighton’s on-loan Arsenal striker Graham Barrett hopes to put the club’s league problems to one side and re-discover his goalscoring touch in their rearranged FA Cup third-round tie against Norwich tonight.
The statistics do not favour the visitors to Carrow Road: Brighton are bottom of the First Division, Norwich are fourth, and Barrett has scored once in 14 matches. But in the 17 games after their FA Cup campaign began they won just two and their final match before taking on Arsenal in the final was a 6-1 thrashing by Aston Villa. Their path to Wembley was not exactly onerous: Cardiff, Hartlepool, Bristol Rovers, Millwall and West Brom.

Their points- to-games ratio was fractionally worse during their cup run but not enough to have made any difference to their fate.The one clear case for an FA Cup run destroying domestic form can be found at Ipswich in 1978. Leicester, who reached January having picked up four victories from 25 games, found their form remained the same, although they would have stayed up had the final match of the season at Old Trafford, played nearly a month after the Cup final, been won.Brighton were relegated before they reached Wembley in 1983, mainly because of an atrocious record away from the Goldstone Ground. Middlesbrough were inspired, not destroyed by the cups.Leicester, in 1969, and Brighton, 14 years later, also had the sweet-and-sour taste of Wembley and relegation. The England and Wales Cricket Board today ignored government pressure not to play in Zimbabwe and announced their determination to fulfil next month’s World Cup fixture in Zimbabwe. “He has the potential to provide English cricket with something it hasn’t had for a long time.”It is certainly difficult to remember the last bowler who was so reluctant to pitch the ball on the mowed strip.The other bowlers also insisted on trying their hand at delivering it both sides of the wicket. Fielders regularly missed the stumps with their throws, failed to back up and did not execute the most straightforward of stops.”The fielding is beyond belief at the moment,” Nasser Hussain said “It’s just not good enough.

The two dropped catches – both put down by the poor, hapless, Stephen Harmison – were only the part of it. But the performance yesterday was born less of callowness than disregard for common virtues.Sri Lanka won an important toss – all tosses remain important in day-night matches – but were probably allowed to make 20 to 30 runs too many. This is at least helping them to avoid the old trap of peaking too soon. The Lancashire all-rounder will fly back to Australia today after proving his fitness – a month after being sent home from for rehabilitation after his failure to overcome a groin injury. His six-year-old Never, trained in France by Fran?s Doumen, was one of 44 horses entered yesterday in the £300,000 Champion Hurdle on 11 March. The damage will be examined today.Confidence is oozing from every section of Alinghi, with the Swiss team even able to continue using old sails.

A day’s break in the racing could not come quickly enough for the Oracle BMW team after they went 0-2 down in the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup yesterday.
The American team still looked very slippery downwind in the second race, but just could not match the power their rivals, Alinghi of Switzerland, have been able to build into their upwind performance in the series, consisting of nine races which are each staged over six legs – three upwind and three down.Nor were the San Francisco-based Oracle helped by breaking their spinnaker pole for the third time since the series began in October, the month Alinghi last lost a race. “When the first quarter didn’t go the way we wanted, we started to try to force things and be urgent, but it never did us any good.”The defeat has led to speculation that the 49ers are poised to part company with their coach, Steve Mariucci: he faces an uncomfortable discussion about his future with senior management later today.For the Buccaneers, however, the road to Super Bowl XXXVII now takes a disturbing detour through Philadelphia, where they will have to make history. Leading 28-6 at half-time, the Buccaneers then let their top-ranked defence finish the job.The San Francisco quarterback, Jeff Garcia, was hounded and harried into a series of mistakes as the 49ers struggled in vain to generate the momentum that had produced a stunning second-half revival against the New York Giants a week earlier.”Nothing seemed to go right today,” said Garcia. It’s one of those things I have to learn from.”While the Raiders are poised on the threshold of their fifth Super Bowl appearance, the Buccaneers, coached by John Gruden who was in charge of Oakland for four years until he left last summer, are close to their first championship game following their demolition of the 49ers.Tampa’s quarterback, Brad Johnson, returned to duty following a back injury, to throw touchdown passes to Joe Jurevicius and Ricky Dudley, while the powerful running of Mike Allstott produced another pair of scores.