Manchester City's Spanish midfielder David Silva, second right, celebrates scoring the opening goal with teammates during the English Premier League football match against Crystal Palace at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, north west England, on December 20, 2014. AFP PHOTO / PAUL ELLIS
Manchester City's Spanish midfielder David Silva, second right, celebrates scoring the opening goal with teammates during the English Premier League football match against Crystal Palace at the EtihadShow more

Patched-up Manchester City leave Manuel Pellegrini purring



MANCHESTER, United Kingdom // Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini believes his team are finally performing like champions, even though there is no immediate end in sight to their chronic injury problems in attack.

City made light of the fact they did not have a recognised fit striker in their squad to beat Crystal Palace 3-0 on Saturday and move level on points -- for 48 hours at least -- with Premier League leaders Chelsea.

David Silva scored twice and Yaya Toure added the third as the pair continued their recent return to peak form and helped City record an eighth consecutive victory in all competitions.

“I’m delighted this squad is demonstrating why we won the title last year,” said Pellegrini.

“I think December is a key month. Maybe it is not the month when you win the title, but you play so many games that if you want to fight for the title, you need to be close to being in the lead.

“We’re having a good moment. Nobody believed two months ago that we would be continuing in the Champions League and involved in the title (race). But we kept trusting what we were doing and kept working every day.”

City’s Christmas period continues when they visit struggling West Bromwich Albion on Friday.

Injured forwards Edin Dzeko, Sergio Aguero and Stevan Jovetic will all be unavailable for that contest, meaning James Milner may have to continue to deputise as an emergency lone striker.

“I don’t think any will be available,” said Pellegrini of his injured strikers.

“Dzeko and Kun (Aguero) I’m sure will not be fit for Boxing Day, but the first half of January. We will see with Jovetic and the way he improves from now until January.”

However, with Silva and Toure in such fine form, City should have few problems with an upcoming schedule that sees them take on not only West Brom, but also Burnley and Sunderland.

“Yaya was very criticised at the beginning of the season, but it was not only Yaya who was not performing at his best,” said Pellegrini.

“I said that when our midfielders -- (Samir) Nasri, Yaya, Fernandinho -- returned to their normal performances, we would return to the way we normally play.

“All of them are playing regularly at the moment. David has come in from a long injury on his knee and is returning to the way he knows how to play.

“I say the same thing about David that I say about Sergio Aguero. This team always needs Sergio Aguero to play because he is a very important player, but I don’t think this team is only Sergio Aguero. David Silva is exactly the same.

“These players make a difference, but if for any reason they can’t play, we still have a team who know how to do it. Other players have their moments and are giving important answers, in the way David did today (Saturday).”

Palace were ultimately well beaten, but visiting manager Neil Warnock was understandably irritated that his midfielder James McArthur had a header incorrectly ruled out for offside when his side were trailing 2-0.

“It was miles onside,” said Warnock, who felt the referee’s assistant who made the call had been at fault.

“He’s in a bad position and it’s a disgraceful decision. I’m sure he will be sorry, but at this level you have to get those decisions right. My players deserved better.”

English Premier League results & fixtures

Saturday

Hull City 0 Swansea City 1

Queens Park Rangers 3 West Bromwich Albion 2

Tottenham Hotspur 2 Burnley 1

West Ham United 2 Leicester City 0

Sunday (in UAE time)

Monday

Stoke City v Chelsea, midnight

Follow us on Twitter @SprtNationalUAE

The%20specs
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Test

Director: S Sashikanth

Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan

Star rating: 2/5

THE SPECS

Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine 

Power: 420kW

Torque: 780Nm

Transmission: 8-speed automatic

Price: From Dh1,350,000

On sale: Available for preorder now

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

The specs
 
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions

There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.

1 Going Dark

A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.

2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers

A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.

3. Fake Destinations

Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.

4. Rebranded Barrels

Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.

* Bloomberg

The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo hybrid

Transmission: eight-speed automatic

Power: 390bhp

Torque: 400Nm

Price: Dh340,000 ($92,579

UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

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