Football Briefs

* LIVERPOOL completed their Southeast Asian tour with a 5-0 friendly victory over Singapore yesterday, ending the two-leg trip on a high note with an emphatic performance in front of 50 000 supporters.

Coach Rafael Benitez rested a majority of regular starters for the first half of the match played at the city-state’s National Stadium and Andriy Voronin’s injury-time strike was the only positive of a lacklustre opening period.Buoyed by the introduction of the squad’s bigger names in the second half, Liverpool, held to a 1-1 draw by Thailand on Wednesday, picked up their tempo with reserve striker Krisztian Nemeth (two), Albert Riera and Fernando Torres all scoring.* NEW signing Michael Owen scored twice and Ryan Giggs grabbed a hat-trick as Manchester United rounded off their pre-season Asian tour with a 8-2 thrashing of China’s Hangzhou Greentown on Sunday.Dimitar Berbartov, Zoran Tosic and Nani were also on target for the English champions against the mid-table Chinese Super League side on a humid night in this tourist resort close to China’s economic capital Shanghai.England striker Owen, who joined United as a free agent earlier this month and has been set a target of 15 goals next season by manager Alex Ferguson, made his tally four goals in his first four games before being replaced by Wayne Rooney at halftime.* BARCELONA’S young guns gave a tantalising glimpse into the future in the Wembley Cup on Sunday as the understudies to the European champions romped to a 4-1 win over African champions Al Ahly.For the second time in three days, Barca boss Pep Guardiola opted to keep most of his stars wrapped in cotton wool as the likes of Thierry Henry, Xavi, Carles Puyol and Andres Iniesta were absent from a weakened Barca team.* PORTSMOUTH manager Paul Hart confirmed yesterday they have accepted a bid from Tottenham for Peter Crouch.’Obviously I’m disappointed to see Peter leave, but given the severe financial restraints in place here we had no choice but to accept an offer from Tottenham,’ Hart told the Daily Mirror.Spurs boss Harry Redknapp has apparently succeeded in reuniting the striker with his former Pompey partner Jermain Defoe for around 10 million pounds. – Nampa-AFP and Reuters