England 4 Bulgaria 0

Jermain Defoe scored a hat-trick as England began their Euro 2010 qualifying campaign with a resounding victory against Bulgaria at Wembley.

After a dismal performance in this summer’s World Cup, manager Fabio Capello was under increasing pressure to deliver a convincing win.

Tottenham Hotspur striker Defoe settled any nerves with an early goal and added a second just after an hour had been played as England exerted their authority over their opponents.

Manchester City’s Adam Johnson scored England’s third and his first for his country before Defoe completed his hat-trick four minutes from time.

As England looked to put the World Cup behind them and concentrate on the European Championships in two years time, a bright start was required to appease a sceptical crowd at Wembley – and Defoe duly delivered.

Wayne Rooney, highly criticised for his sub-par performances in South Africa, played in Ashley Cole, and when he pulled a cross into the six-yard box Defoe volleyed in after just three minutes.

Two decisive moments just after the hour saw the balance of the game swing heavily in favour of England.

Goalkeeper Joe Hart blocked a powerful drive from Stanislav Angelov, enabling England to pour foward on the counter attack. Steven Gerrard linked up well with Rooney to set up Defoe for another clinical finish.

After replacing Theo Walcott, Johnson proved to be a lively introduction and he netted his first international goal with a low drive after 83 minutes.

Defoe was not done yet and he completed his har-trick three minutes later when he took advantage of more good work by Rooney to smash past goalkeeper Nikolay Mihaylov.

Montenegro 1 Wales 0

A narrow defeat in Montenegro saw Wales begin their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign on the backfoot.

The only goal of the game was scored by Montenegro captain Mirko Vucinic after half an hour.

Wales substitute Simon Church saw a header come back off the crossbar and was later flagged off-side when he fired in the rebound after a shot by fellow striker Rob Earnshaw.

Montenegro had the chance to make sure of victory late on but goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey saved well from Simon Vukcevic.

Wales face an uphill struggle to make any impact in Group G with their next opponents being England, Switzerland and Bulgaria.

Montenegro exerted their authority early on and Wales fell behind after 30 minutes to a fine goal by Vucinic.

Defender James Collins will be embarrassed by how easily he was turned by the Roma striker and he placed his left-foot shot in off Hennessey’s right-hand post as the Wolves keeper anticipated a ball across him.

The goal did at least provoke a response from Wales who saw Millwall striker Steve Morison see a penalty appeal turned down.

Cardiff City striker Craig Bellamy could not believe his luck when a diverted cross from Gareth Bale fell into his path but he sliced his effort wide.

Reading striker Church came on for Morison and almost scored an equaliser. First of all he smacked a header off the crossbar and was later caught fractionally off-side after sliding home a rebound from Earnshaw’s shot which was too-hot-to-handle for keeper Mladen Bozovic.

Montenegro should have scored a second deep in injury time but Hennessey made amends for a nervous performance, saving well one-on-one to deny Vukcevic.

Slovenia 0 Northern Ireland 1

Substitute Corry Evans grabbed a late winner for Northern Ireland, scoring with his first touch and securing a precious Euro 2012 qualifier victory in Slovenia.

The home side wasted numerous first half chances and dominated after the break but it was youngster Evans who scored in a rare attack after 70 minutes, turning in low cross from Craig Cathcart at the back post.

Josip Ilicic had Slovenia’s best chance to equalise but Maik Taylor saved well as Northern Ireland clung on for the three points.

After a goalless first half, Slovenia assumed complete control after restart but they could not find a goal which their constant pressure deserved.

Valler Birsa saw his deflected volley fly just wide four minutes into the second half as Slovenia sent wave after wave of attack towards the Northern Ireland goal.

With the scoreline somehow still at nil-nil, Northern Ireland manager Nigel Worthington introduced Rangers striker Kyle Lafferty and Manchester United midfielder Corry Evans on for David Healy and Grant McCann after 67 minutes.

The introduction of 20-year-old Evans was inspired substitution as Northern Ireland took a surprise lead just three minutes later with their first attack of any substance.

Blackpool defender Cathcart sent a low cross to the far post to his former United teammate and Evans managed to shake off his marker to poach a goal from two yards out.

Northern Ireland were forced to work hard to hang onto their lead, with Taylor saving from Ilicic before Zlatan Ljubijankic blasted into the side-netting.

The result was Northern Ireland’s first victory in 11 matches.

Lithuania 0 Scotland 0

Scotland left Kaunas with just a single point as both they and Lithuania failed to score in their opening Euro 2012 Group I qualifier.

Scottish goalkeeper Allan McGregor saved well from Saulius Mikoliunas, while Barry Robson was denied twice from long range by Zydrunas Karcemarskas.

Lithuania were arguably more dangerous in the second half but Scotland strikers Kenny Miller and Steven Naismith missed better chances to score.

The goalless draw was a repeat result of Scotland’s first visit to Lithuania in 1998.

Their poor run of results in the Baltic country means they have won just once in what is their fourth consecutive European Championship qualifying campaign in the same group.

The result means that Scotland are already playing catch-up to World Cup winners Spain, who began their qualifying campaign with a 4-0 away victory in Liechtenstein, Scotland’s opponents on Wednesday.

Scotland should have taken the lead early in the second half when when Alan Hutton found the unmarked Miller 12 yards out but the Rangers striker headed straight at Karcemarskas.

The home side had a good penalty shout when Steven Whittaker clipped Edgaras Cesnauskas on the edge of the box but Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir decided the Lithuanian had made the most of the challenge.

Lithuania looked more dangerous as the match progressed and Tomas Danilevicius narrowly failed to connect in front of goal after a clever through ball.

The introduction of James McFadden and James Morrison off the bench gave Scotland hope but there were to be few clear-cut chances and no goals for either side.

The economy may not be headed for another severe downturn as feared after a positive government’s nonfarm payrolls report on Friday.

All three major US stock indexes increased more than one percent on Friday.

September is usually the weakest month for the market but the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX began on a strong note, gaining 3.8 percent for the week, it’s best in eight

In contrast, for the month of August, the S&P 500 fell 4.7 percent.

“The data forces a re-evaluation of the underlying thesis of the economy” said Charles Lieberman, chief investment officer of Advisors Capital Management LLC, “and how the stock market is priced”.

“The employment report is really the keystone. If the economy is producing jobs, the thesis of a decline in the economy goes out the window,” he added.

The most difficult hurdles as the economy attempts to recover from the worst downturn since the 1930s has been high unemployment and weak consumer spending.

The catalyst for a bullish end to the week was Friday’s jobs report because although overall payrolls shed jobs for the month of August, the decline was much lower than expected.

This news gave a ray of hope for the recovery according to analysts.

Other positive data this week showed an unexpected rise in the Institute for Supply Management index on U.S. manufacturing, stronger-than-expected homes pending sales in July and a second week in a row of lower initial jobless benefits claims.

The drug, Eldepryl (which has the generic name selegiline), is used in pill and patch form to treat Parkinson’s disease, depression, and dementia.

Selegiline can help maintain keep levels of brain chemicals like dopamine strong because they are reduced when nicotine becomes absent.

“That’s why we hoped that selegiline might reduce the cravings and urges associated with quitting and thus help make it easier to quit,” said Dr. Joel D. Killen of Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, one of the researchers who conducted the study.

Killen and his colleagues randomly gave 243 adult smokers a patch containing either selegiline or a placebo patch for further investigation.

The participants were told to start using the patch on the day they made the decision to quit smoking and to then use one patch every 24 hours for eight weeks.

When the eight weeks had ended, 26 percent of the patients who used a selegiline patch had been abstinent for at least the past week but almost 30 percent of the placebo group had not smoked for the same period of time.

At 25 weeks, 17 percent of the selegiline group and 19 percent of the placebo group were abstinent and around 20 percent of people in both groups were abstinent after 52 weeks.

However, gender differences were evident with 28 percent of women abstinent at 52 weeks compared to 16 percent of men.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 21 percent of US adults, approximately 46 million people, smoke and often multiple attempts are required before a smoker successfully quits.

The Old Trafford club sold 51,800 season tickets, short of its 54,000 target, Mr Gill confirmed.

However, he insisted the number was “pretty good in the current climate” and reassured that the United was “in good financial shape”.

The shortfall in sales follows a campaign by Manchester United Supporters’ Trust (MUST) who urged fans to boycott purchasing season tickets in an attempt to persuade the Glazer family to sell the club.

Mr Gill said: “We’ve sold more season tickets than the capacity of most Premier League grounds.

“Our executive seat sales are on track as compared with last year in a different market”.

The Glazer family, who took on huge debts to buy United, sparked the protest by MUST.

The debts have now reached more than £700 million ($1.078bn)  including a £500 million ($770 million) bond scheme, and £202 million ($311 million) in payment-in-kind loans.

MUST chief executive Duncan Drasdo said the shortfall was “a tipping point” in the ownership by the Glazers’.

“The failure to sell out season tickets is very significant as the Glazers depend on an excess of demand over supply to exert control over supporters” he said.

Mr Drasdo said part of the failure to sell out was due to fan’s “huge dissatisfaction” with the Glazers’ operation and the lack of investment in the squad following Ronaldo’s £80 million ($123 million) transfer to Real Madrid last summer.

The 30-year-old defender made only three appearances last season and has not featured since November 2009 due to a long-standing groin problem.

There is speculation the former Real Madrid defender may even have to retire from the game if the problem is not resolved.

Manchester United included injury-plagued midfielder Owen Hargreaves who has made one substitute appearance in the past two years for the club.

The former Bayern Munich star has suffered with tendinitis for the majority of his Old Trafford career.

Despite speculation he would not be included in Manchester City’s squad of 25, striker Roque Santa Cruz was named alongside fellow strikers Mario Balotelli, Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor and Jo.

Arsenal did not name one English player in their squad but included Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere and Kieron Gibbs as part of their under-21 contingent.

Stoke City left out striker Mamady Sidibe who recently snapped an achilles tendon while Michael Kightly will not feature for Wolves due to knee problems.

The new Premier League rule meant clubs had to name a squad of 25 senior players by 1700 BST, 1 September, with only players under the age of 21 allowed to supplement that line-up until January.

According to the Premier League, the new rules are designed to increase the number of young “home-grown” players in the league with a long-term aim of providing the England manager with more options.

Nationwide said seasonally adjusted house prices followed up a 0.5 percent drop in July with a further fall of 0.9 percent in August.

This represented a much larger decline than the 0.2 percent forecast by economists had forecast and the sharpest drop since February.

Since the decline of UK house prices levelled off in February 2009, the falls in July and August were the first two consecutive monthly price drops.

The annual rate of house price growth was also well below forecast at 3.9 percent down from 6.6 percent.

Falling house prices were put down to the increased number of properties available on the market and according to Nationwide, further declines were likely to be “relatively modest”.

This is because low interest rates mean there were few forced sellers of repossessed property.

Prices increased by up to 10 percent in the 12 months to April following a dearth of supply after a 20 percent fall between mid 2007 and early 2009.

“Given that the price rises of the last year had gotten ahead of the recovery in the wider economy”, said Nationwide economist Martin Gahbauer, “the current correction is not an unhealthy development”.

Economists expect broader economic growth to slow sharply after proposed spending cuts from the government and weakness in Britain’s US and European export markets.

A survey of 2,000 households by Markit and YouGov in August revealed almost 23 percent believed their property was now worth less than before, compared with nine percent who believed it had increased in August.

Manager Harry Redknapp made his move to sign the 27-year-old Dutch international just two hours before the transfer window closed at 1800 BST on Tuesday.

However, the club’s urgency to file the required paperwork before the deadline was hit by a technical glitch.

After investigating the club’s claims, the Premier League sanctioned the transfer on Wednesday.

Spurs faced an anxious wait, with the 1700 BST cut-off point on Wednesday for clubs to submit their 25-man senior squads, as Premier League officials assessed their claims.

Van der Vaart became Tottenham’s second deadline-day signing after Croatia goalkeeper Stipe Pletikosa joined on a season-long loan from Russian club Spartak Moscow.

Both players were included in Redknapp’s squad for the first half of the season but injury-prone defender Jonathan Woodgate was left out altogether.

Real Madrid disputed Redknapp’s claims that Bayern Munich had earlier made an offer of more than double their bid for Van der Vaart.

“It was a last-minute job”, Redknapp admitted on Tuesday, “I think he was going to Bayern Munich on Monday for £18 million and suddenly he became much cheaper”.

“They let me know around 4pm (1600 BST) that he was available for £8 million and, for that money, he is a top player who will definitely improve us. The fee has come crashing down because the deadline is so close”.

However, a statement from Real Madrid proved contradictory: “It is absolutely false that Real Madrid received a 21 million euro (£18 million) offer from Bayern Munich for Van der Vaart”.