Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini feels he has “two number one goalkeepers” now Willy Caballero has arrived at the club.
England stopper Joe Hart has been City’s established first choice in goal for several years, although he was dropped for a period by Pellegrini last term before reclaiming his place, with Costel Pantilimon taking over for seven straight English Premier League games.
Read more: Arsenal harness Community spirit in clash with Manchester City
While Pantilimon was released this summer and has moved on to Sunderland, City have recruited Caballero from Malaga, a switch that has seen him reunite with Pellegrini, the pair having previously worked together at the Spanish outfit.
On his arrival in July, Caballero said: “City already have a great goalkeeper in Joe Hart, but I will try to compete for the number one spot.”
And ahead of a possible debut for the 32-year-old Argentinian gloveman in Sunday’s Community Shield against Arsenal at Wembley, Pellegrini has added to the sense that Hart may have quite a battle on his hands this season to keep his starting spot.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference on Friday, Pellegrini stressed he would not be making his Wembley team selection for another 24 hours, but said: “I have two number one goalkeepers, (the same as) I have two number one full-backs, on the right and left, and in other positions.”
The Chilean manager did also say he views Hart as “the best goalkeeper in England”.
Pellegrini said: “(Caballero is settling in) very well - he is a very good goalkeeper, I know him from Malaga, and I think he is very happy here.
“I am sure Willy will be very important for us but I also continue thinking we have the best goalkeeper in England in Joe Hart.
“Top teams need two players for each position because we have to play so many games during the year.
“The best way to have the highest performance from the players is for it to be very competitive between them.”
Asked if he felt Hart had more competition to deal with now from Caballero than previously with Romania international Pantilimon, Pellegrini said: “We will see during the year. When we finish the season I can tell you if he’s had more or less competition.”
While Caballero and another summer recruit, midfielder Fernando, could make their City bows on Sunday, the Premier League champions will be without eight players for the match.
Frank Lampard is deemed not ready to feature yet following his arrival on loan, and the same applies to fellow new signing Bacary Sagna, along with Sergio Aguero, Pablo Zabaleta, Martin Demichelis, Fernandinho and skipper Vincent Kompany - six City players who were involved in the knockout stages of the World Cup.
Alvaro Negredo is the other man to miss out due to his foot injury.
Follow our sports coverage on twitter at @SprtNationalUAE
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
THE BIO
Occupation: Specialised chief medical laboratory technologist
Age: 78
Favourite destination: Always Al Ain “Dar Al Zain”
Hobbies: his work - “ the thing which I am most passionate for and which occupied all my time in the morning and evening from 1963 to 2019”
Other hobbies: football
Favorite football club: Al Ain Sports Club
Tonight's Chat on The National
Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster who has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
Facebook | Our website | Instagram
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
