Diego Costa is not the most popular player outside of Chelsea, but Manchester United's Wayne Rooney is a big fan of the controversial striker.
Costa has earned a reputation as something of a wind-up merchant due to his attempts to get under defenders’ skin.
Arsenal defender Gabriel was sent off earlier this season for clashing with the 27-year-old and he tried to provoke Ryan Shawcross during Chelsea’s defeat to Stoke City last weekend by grabbing the centre-back’s jaw before telling him rather impolitely that he had bad body odour.
Rooney admits there is something to admire about the Brazil-born forward’s antics, however.
Ahead of England's game against Spain in Alicante, Rooney revealed he thought Costa was the best player in the Premier League last season.
“I actually voted for him as player of the year last season because I think he was a huge player for Chelsea,” the England captain said of Costa, who scored 20 goals in his maiden season for the club.
“I think what Chelsea missed the season before was that fight up front and he gave them that and I strongly believe that’s why they became champions.
“Obviously it hasn’t gone as well as it did last season for him but I think he is a fantastic player.
“He’s a fighter and I think that’s part of his game and it’s going to be very difficult for anyone to ask him not to do that.
“I feel that’s in him – that fight. He thrives on that and that gets his teammates going as well.”
Roy Hodgson is also a fan of Costa, but he hopes Friday’s officials will punish the striker if he steps out of line in Alicante.
The England manager feels no need to speak to his players about keeping their cool in the face of Costa’s aggression, however.
“We give the players information about the opponents and their strengths, but we don’t go into that sort of detail where we say: ‘Be careful here’ because that would be teaching my grandmother how to suck eggs. Furthermore I’d be vilifying a player I have no reason to vilify,” Hodgson said.
“Costa for me is a good player, especially last year, he was very, very important to Chelsea.
“He is a very combative player but we have combative centre-halves and they will just have to deal with that situation.
“I wouldn’t dream of suggesting he’s going to try underhand methods. Let’s hope he doesn’t and if he does we’re just going to have to deal with it and hope the referee deals with it like they do every week in the Premier League.”
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The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
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Tuesday results:
- Singapore bt Malaysia by 29 runs
- UAE bt Oman by 13 runs
- Hong Kong bt Nepal by 3 wickets
Final:
Thursday, UAE v Hong Kong
How to invest in gold
Investors can tap into the gold price by purchasing physical jewellery, coins and even gold bars, but these need to be stored safely and possibly insured.
A cheaper and more straightforward way to benefit from gold price growth is to buy an exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Most advisers suggest sticking to “physical” ETFs. These hold actual gold bullion, bars and coins in a vault on investors’ behalf. Others do not hold gold but use derivatives to track the price instead, adding an extra layer of risk. The two biggest physical gold ETFs are SPDR Gold Trust and iShares Gold Trust.
Another way to invest in gold’s success is to buy gold mining stocks, but Mr Gravier says this brings added risks and can be more volatile. “They have a serious downside potential should the price consolidate.”
Mr Kyprianou says gold and gold miners are two different asset classes. “One is a commodity and the other is a company stock, which means they behave differently.”
Mining companies are a business, susceptible to other market forces, such as worker availability, health and safety, strikes, debt levels, and so on. “These have nothing to do with gold at all. It means that some companies will survive, others won’t.”
By contrast, when gold is mined, it just sits in a vault. “It doesn’t even rust, which means it retains its value,” Mr Kyprianou says.
You may already have exposure to gold miners in your portfolio, say, through an international ETF or actively managed mutual fund.
You could spread this risk with an actively managed fund that invests in a spread of gold miners, with the best known being BlackRock Gold & General. It is up an incredible 55 per cent over the past year, and 240 per cent over five years. As always, past performance is no guide to the future.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Game Of Thrones Season Seven: A Bluffers Guide
Want to sound on message about the biggest show on television without actually watching it? Best not to get locked into the labyrinthine tales of revenge and royalty: as Isaac Hempstead Wright put it, all you really need to know from now on is that there’s going to be a huge fight between humans and the armies of undead White Walkers.
The season ended with a dragon captured by the Night King blowing apart the huge wall of ice that separates the human world from its less appealing counterpart. Not that some of the humans in Westeros have been particularly appealing, either.
Anyway, the White Walkers are now free to cause any kind of havoc they wish, and as Liam Cunningham told us: “Westeros may be zombie land after the Night King has finished.” If the various human factions don’t put aside their differences in season 8, we could be looking at The Walking Dead: The Medieval Years.
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
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