City… bloody hell

2:18 PM Sports No Comments

Sergio Aguero scores goal, gets bookedAs the sheer mind-bending ridiculousness of this season in the Premier League finally starts to settle in the minds of fans everywhere, few phrases sum it up better than: "Football... bloody hell."

It was a line famously coined by Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson after his team's dramatic stoppage-time win over Bayern Munich in 1999, but on Sunday it was the turn of noisy neighbours Manchester City to leave the millions watching mouthing those words in astonishment.

For Bayern defender Sammy Kuffour's anguished beating of the Nou Camp turf 13 years ago, see the open-mouthed look of disbelief on Phil Jones's face when news broke that City's 3-2 victory over Queens Park Rangers rendered his own team's 1-0 win at Sunderland redundant.

Arsenal had it on 1989 when the league title was "up for grabs" at Anfield. United had it a decade later on THAT night in Barcelona. Liverpool had it with their 'Miracle of Istanbul' seven years ago. Yesterday, after 380 games and a record 1,066 goals of the Premier League's 20th season, City got their own moment of glorious and historic high drama that took them top of the pile.

None of those who saw City's title-winning two-goal salvo in five minutes of Joey Barton-incurred stoppage time will ever forget it. It may have been the first time the Premier League title was decided on goal difference, but Sergio Aguero's instinctively brilliant winner ensured that the best team over the past nine months won the trophy.

Even Mike Dean — the archetypal jobsworth referee — revelled in City's moment of glory. As Aguero sprinted away in unbridled joy after scoring his injury-time winner, twirling his sky blue shirt above his head, the official from Merseyside booked the Argentine striker for removing his jersey. The man would have made an exceptional traffic warden.

It was another reminder of sport's enduring capacity to shock, surprise and thrill, to make heroes and break hearts.

Team sports are naturally more conducive to upsetting the odds, and the random nature of football makes it the game which delivers the unexpected more often than any other - as that United fan seen clutching a radio at full-time at the Stadium of Light will tell you.

Phil Brown invited a lot of fun to be had at his expense last week when he dubbed the final round of fixtures "Seismic Sunday", but the suspiciously swarthy Sandancer called it right. Just as whenever there is a tectonic shift in the Earth's crust it does not happen quietly, so City's capture of their first league title in 44 years shook the English game to its very core.

Brown was by no means the only one to succumb to delirious hyperbole, though. Even Gary Neville, who has earned so much grudging respect after a fine first season as a pundit, couldn't resist declaring "the Premier League is the best league in the world by a million miles". Whatever the merits of such a claim, you will be hard-pressed to find a climax to a campaign as inspiring anywhere outside the realms of fiction.



In spite of the photo finish which led to City's triumph, there is little argument that they deserve it. They scored the most goals (93), conceded the fewest (29), registered the most clean sheets (17) and had the best home record all season (18 wins, one draw, equalling the Premier League record of 55 points).

In Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero they possess a truly top-drawer spine running through the side of which their rivals can only dream of having. Those four players alone may have cost oil-rich City £67.5 million (with Hart accounting for £1.5m of that), but they are not the first club to buy the title and will almost certainly not be the last.

Less than a decade after Roman Abramovich took over at Chelsea, few would question the Blues' status as an elite outfit today even if it was gained by the Russian's lavish expenditure. By converting Sheikh Mansour's petrodollars into an FA Cup triumph last season and a championship this term, City are now a fully established force.

Just like the west London club, City's huge outlay has been made in order to rapidly bring them to the level of the other top clubs, who have spent big themselves over a longer period of time. Yesterday, Roberto Mancini's starting XI cost a combined £161m - £8m less than United's. Now, with UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules in full effect, it will largely be this group of City players that sets about turning their year of dominance into an era.

Unlike Chelsea, however, City have delivered more excitement than efficiency as they have spent their way to the top. The 5-1 victory at White Hart Lane and their 6-1 win at Old Trafford gave them the look of runaway champions before Christmas, but some negative results on the pitch and insubordination from a pair of sulky strikers off it kept things interesting for the neutral right up until the very last moments.

It was the perfect compromise for City fans across the generations. For the eldest among them, it was a return to the late 1960s when they had a genuine claim for being the best club in the land. For those who have endured a lifetime of ineptitude and failure who struggle to be make peace with the new, free-spending behemoth their club has become, there was more than enough flirtation with disaster to satisfy even the most masochistic supporter. As for the youngest, a new generation of City fans are now bred on something which eluded the club for so long: success.

The victory was very much a City one. For all those who still hold the 1999 Division Two play-off final win so dear, this triumph had just as much nail-biting anguish to make it all the more sweet.

City supporters must cling on to memories of such a hard-fought victory. They may not be so dramatic in the future.

- - -

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The head was never gone at any stage, once I'd been sent off, one of our players suggested I should try to take 1 of theirs with me..." — QPR's Joey Barton takes to Twitter to defend his abhorrent actions after getting sent off against City, which saw him knee Aguero in the back of the leg and try to headbutt Kompany. Barton could now be facing a cumulative nine-match ban for his actions. But, as he said, at least he never lost "the head".

FOREIGN VIEW: It wasn't just England where there were thrills to be had and history to be made.

In Spain, Real Madrid signed off on their title-winning campaign with a 4-1 win over Mallorca that saw them post a record 100 points for a season and a whopping 121 goals scored, another record. At the bottom of the table Villarreal — Spain's fourth-best team last season and Champions League semi-finalists in 2006 — were relegated.

In Italy, champions Juventus completed the league season unbeaten with a 3-1 win over Atalanta that saw Alessandro Del Piero score on what will likely be his final Serie A appearance for the Old Lady. A win in next Sunday's Coppa Italia final will confirm them as going the whole season without defeat.

In Germany, Bayern Munich warmed up for Saturday's Champions League final by getting hammered 5-2 by Borussia Dortmund in the DFB Pokal final, the latter clinched the German double in the process.

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Premier League - Reaction: Mancini hails 'crazy' finish

2:15 PM Sports No Comments

Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini admitted it has been a "crazy season" after his side pippedManchester United to the Barclays Premier League title with a last-gasp 3-2 victory over QPR.

But Edin Dzeko rose to give the Blues fresh hope before Sergio Aguero drove home the goal that turned City into champions for the first time since 1968.The Blues looked set to endure a awful afternoon when Djibril Cisse and Jamie Mackie overturned Pablo Zabaleta's first-half strike in between Joey Barton getting sent off.

Mancini told Sky Sports 1: "It was incredible - they deserved this. To win it like this is incredible. I don't think I've ever seen a finale like this.

"We didn't deserve to lose, we had a lot of chances and we deserved to win the game and championship.

"It's fantastic for the club and the supporters after 44 years. It's been a crazy season and a crazy last minute.

"Five minutes from the end, I didn't think we'd win this game. But we deserved to win this and deserved to win the title. We were on top for 20 games.

"I think for us it was really important to start winning this championship, Manchester City can have a big future now."

City captain Vincent Kompany admitted the dramatic ending was almost too much for him.

"You want to say it's the best moment of your life but, if I'm honest, please never again this way.

"Even though the first half was really good we just couldn't get through.

"I never stopped believing. When Edin scored that goal, it reminded me of so many other moments during the season when we've done this before. There was no reason not to believe.

"It's not sunk in yet. I don't know what happened at the end, it was just a huge mess.

"I'm so happy for the guys cos they've given so much this season. We've dreamed of this all our lives and now we're champions. See the fans and how happy they are - unbelievable."

Mike Summerbee, a key member of the last City side to win the league in 1968, seemed in a state of shock.

"It was quite unbelievable, you couldn't write that," he said.

"I thought we were out of it, then things change. I can't go through things like that at my age."

Former team mate Francis Lee said it was high time a new generation took over.

"I think we've got a new band of legends now," he said. "We can retire into the legends club and just sit there with our feet up now."

United manager Alex Ferguson was taken aback by the most extraordinary close to a Premier League season but still found time for a dig at the side he previously dismissed "noisy neighbours".

"Nobody expected that. Everybody expected City to win, but they did it against 10 men for half an hour and with five extra minutes to help them," he said after Wayne Rooney's goal had put him in sight of the title.

"But I congratulate City on winning the league. Anybody who wins it deserves it, because it's a long haul. At the end of our game our players didn't actually know the results. Now, they're really disappointed, I'm glad to say.

"There's no other way they should be. They conducted themselves brilliantly today. Their performance level was good. I'm pleased at our performance this season. 89 points would win most leagues. It wasn't our turn today."

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Hands-on: Samsung Galaxy S III review

2:04 PM Technology No Comments

So, the Samsung Galaxy S III (with roman numerals) is finally here, and Pocket-lint is one of the first in the world to actually get its hands on one of the Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich-touting devices.

And, although we haven't had time to review it fully - including a more in-depth play with TouchWiz and the user interface other than specific new features - it's looking good. Very good indeed.



The handset itself is massive, measuring 136.6mm tall, 70.6mm wide and boasting a waistline of 8.6mm - which is basically as thin as its predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S II, but much bigger.


It's heavier, at 133g, although that's really because of the extra glass needed to front the gorgeous 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED touchscreen, which is eye-searingly vibrant. And that extra weight doesn't matter much in the hand, you'd barely notice (too busy looking at the tasty display).

Its resolution is HD at 1280 x 720 with a 306 PPI, so much sharper and clearer than on the previous model and, if pushed, we'd say it is better when looked at in direct comparison to an iPhone 4S Retina display, certainly with colour representation, anyway.

Our initial thoughts are that off-angle it performs better than the Samsung Galaxy Note, which can introduce a green tinge when looked at it acutely, but we'd have to spend more time with it to find out for sure. It can definitely shine brightly though, with the maximum brightness setting being dazzling.

The other thing you notice immediately is that - contrary to much of the rumoured nonsense that has littered the internet of late - there is a home button, which is solid and very tangible, and Menu/Recent Apps and Back icons either side on the fascia itself - they glow when in use, fade away when not.

On the rear there's an 8-megapixel camera and LED flash, while the front houses a 1.9-megapixel webcam that is also employed for face recognition purposes. This is one of the SGSIII's stand-out new features, which Samsung has called Smart Stay. The phone intelligently sees when you're looking at it and ensures that the screen never dims when it has eye contact.

As Min Cho, senior manager of Samsung's Korean HQ's Sales & Marketing Team, Mobile Communications, told us in an exclusive chat: "The phone only sleeps when you do.

And that's not the only interesting new control function. There's also Direct Call, which allows you to call back someone who has left a message, sent a text or communicated with you in a number of other ways by simply lifting the phone to your ear. As long as they are in your contacts list, the Galaxy S III automatically dials the number. We tried it, and it worked as easy as you like. You can also turn off the mode if you don't want to call people accidentally when moving about.


Perhaps, though, the most useful feature, and one that is probably going to be talked about more than any other, is S Voice, Samsung's equivalent of Siri that does so much more than Apple's technology.

S Voice not only allows you to control certain functions, like with former Android voice recognition technology, but it now also understands a massive gamut of natural phrases. Plus, it can be customised with up to four separate wake-up commands. For example, you can set it to respond with the phrase "Galaxy" or "get up". This will unlock the screen and get the whole shebang going. And as that specific function will respond only to your voice, there's no concerns over security.

Samsung has also integrated voice recognition into certain embedded applications, such as the camera app. Where before you had to scrabble to find a button -either on screen or off - in order to take a shot, you can now just bark commands. "Hi Galaxy, picture," will open the camera app, for instance, then "capture" or "cheese" will take a picture. It's very effective, and a better use of vocal triggering than asking your iPhone aloud to find a nearby restaurant when on a crowded train (only to be met with "I can only look for businesses in the United States...").

You can also now control your music on the phone, even if it is playing a song loudly in the background. It's all quite similar to the way Microsoft has integrated Kinect voice recognition into its Xbox 360 UI, which we're fond of here at Pocket-lint.

The camera application has also had a few significant improvements. The Samsung Galaxy S III is capable of recording video in Full HD (1080p) - much like other Samsung top end phones - and 720p through the front-facing cam, and while you're capturing footage you can now also take stills without halting the process. Like with the normal photo modes, there's zero shutter lag too, and minimum saving time.

There's also a funky new mode called Burst Shot, which, when enabled, takes 20 photos in quick succession (at six frames per second) and automatically chooses the one it judges to offer the quality based on a number of parameters. As the phone's rear camera has multiple face recognition properties of its own, it will look to see if your subject is closing his or her eyes, whether they are smiling, etc.

Face recognition also comes into play with general shooting and the ability to zoom. Whereas you would formerly have to zoom individually on a subject using pinch on the touchscreen, now you can just double tap the box that appears around their head - the Galaxy S III immediately frames them in the picture. In addition, a new slideshow mode will zoom into faces when they appear on any of your photos, scrolling through them if there's more than one person in the shot.

And that's not all... the new software's abilities will also recognise people in the shots if they are already in you contacts list, displaying their info when hovered over and automatically sharing the picture with them through Buddy Share if you so desire.

And, if you have your contacts sorted into groups, the app will automatically detect and sort your photos into the same groups too, ensuring that your family shots are all neatly tidied into the one easy to access place. You can also tag friends and family in each photo for Facebook without having to leave the phone's camera application. Impressive stuff.

Sharing content with others has been made much easier too, especially if they also have a Samsung Galaxy S III. The new device is NFC-enabled and comes with Wi-Fi Direct in-built, so Samsung has combined both Android Beam and Wi-Fi Direct into one technology it calls S Beam. This allows you to simply touch two handsets together in order to transfer picture or video files regardless of their size.

It works a treat, based on our hands-on test, with transfer speeds of up to 400Mbps (via NFC). Presumably, the Wi-Fi Direct option (offering up to 300Mbps speeds) has been added so that it could potentially communicate with non-NFC devices. Time will tell.

Other wireless highlights are supplied by the now Samsung standard DLNA-enabled AllShare Play, which allows you to access files on the phone through a laptop, Smart TV, etc, and new feature AllShare Cast which allows you to transmit HD content on to a compatible TV, effectively mirroring the entire display. It's great for playing games on a much bigger screen.

The phone is HSPA+ for the UK but will be LTE (4G) in other supported countries. It's a shame we don't have the networks sorted out over here in time, but it's hardly an issue considering its peers are similarly hamstrung.

One last new feature we instantly fell in love with is a by-product of the Galaxy S III rocking Samsung's new 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor and a healthy 1GB of RAM; pop up video. When watching video - HD or otherwise - you can still multitask, use the internet, send a text message and whathaveyou, and the clip will continue to play in a small pop-up window. And the best part is that you can swipe it around the screen, allowing you to access whatever you need underneath.

We tried it out with the internet and, specifically, searching for something on Google, and the clip ran as smoothly as if we hadn't touched it at all. Of course, it's in a much smaller form factor, but as soon as you go back to it, it expands to fill the screen again. Brilliant.

There'll be other surprises in the speed stakes to be had too, once we've played with the phone a bit more, after all the graphics processing is also quad core, with an increased clock speed of 65 per cent over the Samsung Galaxy S II. It'll certainly be interesting to see what Android developers can do with such extra power.

We suspect that power doesn't come at the cost of battery life either, with a 2100mAh cell on board, although from our play, we can't confirm that yet. The team behind the Exynos 4 Quad chip do claim that the processor itself has 20 per cent drain on the battery, but there's the bigger screen to take into acount, OLED or no.

On launch, the new smartphone will come with several pre-installed apps, including those detailed above. All of Samsung's usual hubs will be present and also Flipboard (with which you can get daily Pocket-lint news) and Dropbox. The latter will come as a brief shock to those who believed the rumours that Samsung was launching its own cloud service alongside the Galaxy S III, but its full integration here is much welcome, as is the 50GB of free storage space - wowsers!

So too, bizarre it may seem to some, is Samsung's decision to adopt micro SIM for its flagship phone. As we handle a fair few smartphones in Pocket-lint towers, all our SIMs are micro or cut-down, and some of the devices we get through our doors aren't as receptive to plastic SIM size-converters as you'd hope. But we can understand that others might not be so pleased with the news, especially those who hot swap devices.

At least it matches the microSD and MHL video output in minimising socketry. The former behaves as with plenty of Samsung phones before it, allowing you to expand the 16GB, 32GB or 64GB built-in memory (depending on which version you opt for) by up to 32GB, whereas the latter offers connectivity between the device and a HD TV.

Finally, this hands-on review would not be complete without talking about the feel of the phone in the hand and the overall aesthetics.

Coming in Pebble Blue and Marble White (we much prefer the white version), both flavours of the Samsung Galaxy S III have been designed with nature in mind. Indeed, Cho told us that the philosophy behind the phone is, "inspired by nature, designed for humans," which also runs through the choice of wallpapers and a water rippling effect (visually and aurally) on the unlock screen.

The rear is smooth and rounded, while the front, to be honest, looks like the Galaxy Nexus, if just a little larger. As previously mentioned, it's extremely light, but as the bezel is one of the thinnest Samsung has ever managed, the screen feels even bigger than its 4.8-inches.

If there's anything we were slightly down on it's that the back panel feels a little plasticky, especially when compared to other brands' flagship phones, such as the Panasonic Eluga dL1 or Nokia Lumia 900, but at least it keeps the weight down. This is not a handset to stroke longingly, this is a handset to use.

And, that's the point. Although it's early doors in our testing process, Samsung has created a powerhouse of a smartphone, one that can truly make claims to being a portable computer in your pocket. We've seen enough to know that iPhone 4S fans will be sick with envy.

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