Hamburg  - TSG Hoffenheim showed no signs of stage fright in their new home stadium as they held the Bundesliga lead with a 2-0 victory against lowly Energie Cottbus on Saturday.

Demba Ba and loan hiring Boubacar Sanogo were on target in the Rhein-Necker stadium after Hoffenheim played their home games in the first half of the season in nearby Mannheim.

Hoffenheim top the table with 38 points, Hertha Berlin and Hamburg have 36 each and champions Munich are fourth on 35. Munich crashed 1-0 in Hamburg on Friday while Hertha defeated Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 on Saturday.

London  - Stoke City gave their hopes of avoiding relegation from the English Premier League a massive boost on Saturday when they beat Manchester City 1-0 despite playing for almost an hour with only 10 men.

James Beattie headed the only goal of the game in the fifth minute of first-half injury time to give Stoke victory and lift them out of the bottom three.

London, Jan. 31 : Coach and manager Alex Ferguson reckons his strike force can break through the 80-goal mark this season and carry Manchester United to glory.

All the talk recently has been about the Red Devils record 11 consecutive Premier League games without conceding.

Now Fergie wants the attack to grab back some of the headlines as they did in cutting loose in the 5-0 demolition of West Brom in midweek.

And the United boss believes Dimitar Berbatov, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo can all go on and get 20 goals each this season.

Hamburg - Bayern Munich's dream of a grand start out of the German football winter break lasted only 72 hours as SV Hamburg exposed that they are only human after all.

Munich appeared superhuman in a 5-1 cup rout on Tuesday at VfB Stuttgart, but all their ambitions froze on a cold Friday when they were beaten 1-0 by Hamburg in the Bundesliga restart.

Mladen Petric's winner shortly before halftime made sure that Hamburg and not Munich moved to the top of the standings (at least until later Saturday) to the delight of the 57,000-strong crowd.

Instead of starting a planned winning streak to take the league by storm Munich's inconsistency prevailed in their third season defeat.

London, Jan. 31: England footballer David Beckham is vital for Italian football club A C Milan's bid for silverware, says mid-fielder Rino Gattuso.

Giving his views on the England star's stunning start to a three-month loan spell from L A Galaxy, Gattuso was quoted by the Sun as saying: "He is a great professional.

"He's always there, he scores and makes himself available. We hope he stays for Milan to reach its objectives," he added.

Madrid  - Real Madrid have agreed with West Ham United to take Julien Faubert on loan until the end of the season, according to Spanish media reports.

According to the digital versions of AS and Marca, Real will pay the East London club 1.5 million euros (1.96 million dollars) for the 25 year-old French winger, with an option to buy him in the summer for 6 million euros.

Real have been looking for another winger since selling Robinho to Manchester City in August.