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Manchester City and Arsenal’s title battle – and Liverpool’s recent struggles – show that a solid midfield is crucial The holding midfield role is a bespoke one; you need to be technically very good, not just a destroyer, have a high-level understanding of the game and be able to drop into the backline but also break forward, depending on what team you are in. Simple enough. Manchester City have one of the best in the business in Rodri. He has been an incredibly consistent performer since his arrival from Atlético Madrid in 2019 and City are reaping the rewards. The importance of his role is shown by Saturday’s opponents, Liverpool, who have been constantly linked with midfield players because they have struggled in this position. Rodri, on the other hand, has provided stability. Continue reading...

* Champions League quarter-final poised at 1-0 before second leg * Emma Hayes ready to make late call on crucial defender Bright Emma Hayes will give Millie Bright as much time as possible to prove her fitness for Chelsea’s Champions League quarter-final second leg against Lyon on Thursday night. Chelsea earned a 1-0 victory in the first leg in south-east France thanks to a Guro Reiten goal to give the Blues the advantage over the eight-time Women’s Champions League winners and current holders. Continue reading...

* Saudi Public Investment Fund took majority stake in club * US court case raises questions over state involvement The chief executive of the Premier League has told MPs he cannot comment on whether Newcastle’s links with Saudi Arabia are being reinvestigated in light of a recent US court case. Newcastle’s takeover saga ended in 2021 after the Saudi Public Investment Fund took a majority stake, having provided “legally binding assurances” to the Premier League there would be no state involvement in the running of the club. Continue reading...

* Clubs will also get a greater say in football calendar * Deal could make European Super League less likely Fifa has agreed to pay clubs an extra $146m (£119m) to release their players for the men’s World Cup and give them a greater say in the game’s calendar. The moves are part of a new deal that indicates a significant thawing of relations between the sport’s governing body and Europe’s top teams. Relations have been frosty since the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, offered his tacit support for the failed European Super League project and advocated for a World Cup every two years. Infantino signed a new memorandum of understanding on Monday with the European Clubs Association in Budapest. Continue reading...

* Manchester City star has operation on Sunday morning * Foden trained on Saturday but out of Ukraine qualifier Phil Foden will miss England’s Euro 2024 qualifier against Ukraine after undergoing surgery to remove his appendix. The Manchester City midfielder felt unwell after training on Saturday and has been forced to leave the camp, further limiting Gareth Southgate’s outfield options before his side’s second match in Group C. Southgate, who is set to hand James Maddison his first international start when England meet Ukraine at Wembley on Sunday evening, has already seen Mason Mount, Marcus Rashford and Reece James pull out of the squad through injury. England are also without Luke Shaw, who is suspended following his red card during the 2-1 victory against Italy on Thursday night. Continue reading...

* Under-21s manager calls on social media companies to act * ‘These same people will be cheering goals if Chieo scores’ The Republic of Ireland Under-21s manager, Jim Crawford, has hit out at the “uneducated” trolls who sent online abuse to members of the country’s under-15s squad. The Football Association of Ireland has condemned the attacks which came after the under-15s’ back-to-back 6-0 victories over Latvia this week, as “vile and horrific” and is working with police and social media companies to identify and deal with those responsible. Continue reading...

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! Outside the worlds of Countdown and Scrabble, longevity just doesn’t get the credit it deserves. First-world problems, we’ll reluctantly concede, but we’ve got to talk about something and this football email won’t write itsel … [Football Daily glazes over, then sits lost in thought for a few minutes before walking cordially into The Man’s office to pitch Bored, the world’s first AI teatime football email. Precisely 4.71 seconds later, Football Daily emerges, openly weeping, and returns to its desk]. Re: yesterday’s Football Daily letters: the standard of writing must have reached new heights if Simon Mazier’s ‘Fenerbahce Sequence’ didn’t win prizeless letter o’ the day. We can only be thankful that there was no prize for him to have been deprived of” – Jeff Lloyd (and 1,056 others). ChatGPT seems to be all the rage now, supposedly backed by a powerful artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm. It’s pretty impressive, and scary, but th

Preparations for this year’s tournament are fraught due to scheduling issues, but England are embracing the challenge On a wet and windy night in Manchester, Ian Foster runs through an itinerary that is taking the head coach of England Under-20s men’s team to Marbella and Bali over the next week. “It’s tough at the top,” he jokes. Warmer weather aside, Foster’s quip has substance, as the ripple effects of staging a winter World Cup in Qatar continue to be felt in international circles. On Wednesday, England began preparations for the Under-20s World Cup in Indonesia with a 2-0 win over Germany at Manchester City’s Academy Stadium. Continue reading...

* Financial misconduct prosecutor made comments in 2019 * ‘I care about Napoli, as a prosecutor I am against Juventus’ One of three prosecutors accusing Juventus of financial misconduct has left the case after the emergence of derogatory comments he made about the team, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. In a video shot at a legal conference in Milan in 2019, a year before the inquiry into Juventus opened, Turin prosecutor Ciro Santoriello said: “I am a huge fan of Napoli, I hate Juventus.” He added in what appears to be a lighthearted exchange: “As a soccer fan I care about Napoli, as a prosecutor I am against Juventus, against robberies on the pitch.” Continue reading...

* Glazer family have set deadline for bids of 9pm on Wednesday * Reports that as many as five different bids may be submitted Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani will make a second bid to buy Manchester United before Wednesday’s 9pm deadline. Representatives of the Qatari businessman were at Old Trafford and the club’s Carrington training ground last Thursday to hold more talks and receive further information to help them conduct due diligence. Continue reading...

Victory over Madrid in the clásico leaves Barça 12 points clear. It will have been a different kind of success this season Franck Kessié hasn’t always been in the right place at the right time but on Sunday night at 10.53pm he was exactly where he needed to be, and when. One morning, soon after arriving at Milan, the Ivorian pulled into Milanello and parked in the space reserved for the big boss. Stopped by security, told he couldn’t go there because that was the president’s spot, he replied: “I am the president.” It fit somehow and the title stuck. That day he became The President; now, five years on, he became President, King, Emperor, anything he likes. Above all, he became La Liga champion, they all did. Which is why he, the son of a soldier, was standing to salute, and Camp Nou was going wild around him. Sometimes the difference is a fine line, and sometimes that’s literal. The clock showed 80.15 in the 258th clásico, the one that would decide the destiny of the league, and the

Maurizio Sarri said he wanted to win the Rome derby more than a Conference League tie. And win the derby they did Lazio let the side down on Thursday when they became the only Italian club to be eliminated from Europe all season. Serie A sent six teams through to continental quarter-finals for the first time this century, but the Biancocelesti’s defeat to AZ Alkmaar cost the league a clean sweep. Maurizio Sarri pointed to a congested calendar, saying his team was “probably not structurally ready for these competitions”. Was it that, or did their priorities simply lie elsewhere? In the same breath, Sarri had acknowledged “there’s less energy around the club when it comes to a competition like the Conference League”. He suggested this was something players perceived from the fans, yet he was the one telling reporters before the second leg against Alkmaar that he wanted to win Sunday’s Rome derby more. Continue reading...

A hymn of limbs and lungs, a game of pure vibes and pure desire, this was an FA Cup quarter-final epic to stand the test of time. And at its very climax a swing of a leg, a ripple of the Bramall Lane net and a noise that will power Sheffield United all the way to Wembley and a semi-final against Manchester City. It was Tommy Doyle’s 25-yard goal in the first minute of injury time that proved the difference against a daring but distraught Blackburn Rovers, a club who were 10 minutes away from their own blessed moment of triumph. The bare contours of this game offer just a fraction of the story. United started brightly. Blackburn went ahead against the run of play. United equalised fortuitously. Blackburn again went ahead against the run of play. United equalised through Oli McBurnie with 10 minutes remaining. But the common thread running throughout was a full-blooded commitment, a four‑sided assault on the senses, Yorkshire against Lancashire, a spectacle as gripping as a good film an

Presenters back to cover FA Cup quarter-final after row that nearly cost BBC director general and chairman their jobs Gary Lineker returned to presenting Match of the Day on Saturday evening after a row that threatened to topple the BBC chairman and director general. As the former England international introduced live BBC coverage of the FA Cup quarter-final between Manchester City and Burnley, pundit Alan Shearer touched on the recent controversy. Continue reading...

League Two club has become a hub for local regeneration as excitement builds before quarter-final tie at Brighton Sacha Baron Cohen is immensely multitalented but since 2016 his popularity in one of England’s landmark coastal outposts has plummeted. Seven years ago Grimsby, a spy-comedy-thriller co-written and co-produced by the actor, hit UK cinemas with the north-east Lincolnshire town depicted as a violent, rubbish-strewn, addict-inhabited ghetto. No matter that filming largely took place in Tilbury, Essex, it was most definitely not the sort of Hollywood treatment most Grimbarians desired. Baron Cohen played Nobby, a jobless, feckless, Grimsby-bred, football hooligan and father of 11 children, who joins forces with his MI6 hotshot spy brother Sebastian (Mark Strong) in some hair-raising James Bond-esque international escapades. Continue reading...

* Chelsea’s talks with struggling Ligue 1 club have intensified * Uefa may allows clubs with same owner in some competition Chelsea have stepped up interest in buying a stake in Strasbourg after Uefa’s president, Aleksander Ceferin, opened the door to relaxing restrictions on clubs with the same owner playing in the same European competitions. The Strasbourg president, Marc Keller, confirmed this month he was in talks with Chelsea’s co-owner Todd Boehly over a full or partial sale of the Ligue 1 club and it is understood those discussions have intensified. Ceferin said this week that Uefa was considering a rule change, after Manchester United’s takeover talks raised issues around the potential conflict of two clubs in the same competition coming under one owner. Continue reading...

Manager has settled on a core group of players and should focus on next season rather than the league table It may sound funny, but Chelsea should not worry about their Premier League points tally for the rest of the season. Instead, they need to use this time to make sure they are ready to hit the ground running in August. Graham Potter was appointed Chelsea manager in September and it has taken time to instil his culture and philosophy, but we are starting to see the green shoots. Football is a demanding environment and people want overnight success, but whenever a manager comes in he needs to learn about the players and vice versa. Continue reading...

* Premier League club lend full support to midfielder after scam * Scarpa has appeared in court in Brazil trying to regain money Nottingham Forest are supporting their midfielder Gustavo Scarpa after he lost almost £1m in a cryptocurrency scam. Forest allowed their January signing to return to Brazil to deal with the matter, where returns on his significant investment were not paid. Scarpa, who moved to England in November after his contract at Palmeiras expired, has appeared in court in his homeland after trying to regain his money, according to reports in Brazil. Continue reading...

Cristiano Ronaldo was shown a yellow card during Al Nassr's King Cup quarter-final win over Abha, having picked the ball up and punted it downfield after the referee had blown for half-time. Ronaldo was visibly annoyed that a potential counterattack had been stopped short, with his team leading 2-0. Al Nassr won the game 3-1 to reach the semi-finals, but it marked the second game in a row where Ronaldo let his frustrations show after failing to find the net. Last Thursday, the Al Nassr captain kicked a water bottle as he stormed down the tunnel after the 1-0 defeat to title rivals Al Ittihad. • Ronaldo storms down tunnel after Saudi league defeat Continue reading...

* Manager does not want to risk 5-2 advantage in the last-16 tie * Ancelotti says the game will be more complicated for Madrid Around this time last year, just after Real Madrid had somehow survived against Chelsea, Carlo Ancelotti concluded that he must be immortal, but it’s not a theory he plans to put to the test – and he certainly doesn’t want to go through that again. Which is why the Italian coach has asked his team to ignore the doubts he insists will be even greater than Liverpool’s and put away their calculators as they step into the Santiago Bernabéu for the Champions League last‑16 second leg on Wednesday, 5-2 up from the first. There is no point protecting a lead and considering it done is a prelude to discovering it’s not. So Ancelotti says Madrid will “attack more than defend”. He speaks from experience: he lost the most absurd final of all having been 3-0 up against Liverpool in Istanbul and 17 years later won an even more incredible European Cup after beating the

Marco Rose’s transformation of the Red Bull club continues apace and they have an outside chance of the Bundesliga title The last time RB Leipzig visited Manchester City, they attacked with gusto. They were brave and bold. Christopher Nkunku bagged a hat-trick. A repeat of that this week wouldn’t be enough. City returned fire with interest, scoring six. That was in September 2021 under Jesse Marsch, with the team struggling for identity and control, despite the club going for continuity in appointing from the Red Bull stable. By the time the teams met again in Saxony for the return leg in December, Marsch had been shown the door and the club were about to appoint Domenico Tedesco – whose last match in charge of Schalke had been at the Etihad Stadium in March 2019, a chastening 7-0 defeat, if we’re looking to bring the City link full circle. Continue reading...

Disruption to sports programming continues into second day as pressure grows on BBC chairman Richard Sharp * Lineker row live – latest news updates The BBC has been forced to scale back a second day of sports programming amid a deepening row over the suspension of Gary Lineker. The corporation will air a shortened version of Match of the Day 2 without presenters or pundits after a mass walkout by BBC stars in support of Lineker. The BBC chair, Richard Sharp, was facing growing calls to stand down over his ties to the Conservative party, as Labour and the Liberal Democrats said he was unfit to oversee the broadcaster during an impartiality crisis. Lineker’s son, George, said his father would not apologise for his tweet comparing the language used to set out the government’s immigration plans to “that used by Germany in the 30s”. He suggested his father could leave the BBC at the end of his contract in 2025. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) said the “whirling chaos” was

Assuming Match of the Day is still running by the time their goal of the month competition for March is staged, Chelsea should have three contenders on the shortlist. Brilliant finishes from Ben Chilwell, Kai Havertz and Mateo Kovacic enabled Graham Potter to celebrate a third win in what had been cast as potentially the manager’s final week at the club. Gary Lineker could be forgiven for wanting to return to the warmth of the BBC studio if this is what watching Leicester live is like. A fifth successive defeat in all competitions means Brendan Rodgers picks up the baton as the Premier League manager most under pressure. Leicester are one point above the relegation places. Continue reading...

Manchester City can close the gap on Arsenal as they head to Crystal Palace before the leaders face Fulham on Sunday Saturday 12.30pm BT Sport 1 Venue Vitality Stadium Last season n/a Continue reading...

* Kane is Ten Hag’s preferred No 9, with Osimhen also on radar * Mount a more affordable option than Bellingham if Kane joins Manchester United have added Chelsea’s Mason Mount to a list of attacking midfield targets including Jude Bellingham, who could prove too expensive if Erik ten Hag devotes the bulk of his summer budget to a move for Harry Kane. Ten Hag wants an elite No 9 and although Napoli’s Victor Osimhen is on United’s radar, Kane is seen as a surer guarantee of goals in the Premier League goals. The Tottenham striker could decide it is time for a fresh challenge, although signing him would not be easy. Continue reading...

* English coach lasted just 12 games in charge * Belgian champions won twice in Parker’s tenure Scott Parker has been relieved of his duties as Club Brugge head coach after just 12 games in charge of the Belgian club. Club Brugge announced the departure of the former Fulham and Bournemouth manager in the wake of their 5-1 defeat to Benfica on Tuesday that saw them crash out of the Champions League. Continue reading...

Faye Carruthers, Suzanne Wrack, Sophie Downey and Moyo Abiona reflect on an eventful Conti Cup final and round up the latest WSL news In this week’s pod: Arsenal end their four-year wait for silverware by beating Chelsea in the Continental Cup final. Jonas Eidevall praises his side’s character, while Emma Hayes really wants you to know that it was a very, very long wait. Meanwhile in the WSL, Alessia Russo and Bunny Shaw bag hat-tricks as United and City make it a one-two in the table for Manchester. Continue reading...

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! Poor old Arsenal. There they were on Saturday afternoon, with their dramatic, last-minute, momentum-maintaining, potential-league-winning, stadium-into-hyperspace-dispatching goal that registered 9.3 on the Michaelthomasometer, expecting to be the talk of the town for the whole week and maybe the entire month … only for Bruno Fernandes to stage his spectacular dirty protest 24 hours later, refusing point blank to tackle, chase back, tidy his room, all that. Oh Bruno, Luke, Lisandro et al! Did Reiss Nelson calmly slot a spectacular, 96th-minute, possible-season-defining, rising, screaming, net-ripping, opposition-gut-punching, stop-the-world, top-class half-volley for nothing? While Mike Smith can rightly compare the last-minute drama at Chippenham Town in the National League South to the similar scenes at the Emirates (yesterday’s Football Daily letters), can I offer a further step on the way down the proof-ladder that the drama doe

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Robyn Cowen and Barney Ronay to review the weekend’s Premier League action Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email. Today: it seemed impossible that anything would pip Reiss Nelson’s last-minute winner for Arsenal against Bournemouth and then on Sunday Liverpool beat Manchester United 7 (seven)-0. Crisis over for Liverpool? A disaster for Erik ten Hag? Or just a very funny result? The panel decides. Continue reading...

Euros hero was considering a life beyond football before a phone call changed everything – and has been rewarded by Fifa Before Mary Earps and her Manchester United teammates played at Old Trafford for the first time, the goalkeeper embarked on a vital reconnaissance mission. “I like to know where I’m going to park on match day so I need to drive the route and then work out the way I’m going to walk into the ground after leaving my car,” she explained before that landmark game two years ago. “I’m the type of person who prepares everything in advance. Maybe other people would use the term ‘control freak’ but it’s just so I don’t waste any mental energy and can focus purely on football.” Continue reading...

Patrick Vieira insisted only fine margins were standing between his side and an upturn in fortunes after Joachim Andersen’s 27th-minute own goal at Aston Villa made it nine Premier League games without a win. The 1-0 defeat continued Palace’s slide towards the relegation battle, with only six points separating them from the bottom three as they still await their first league victory of 2023. Continue reading...

Eddie Howe must handle the extra cameras documenting team’s season but all his focus is on challenging elite clubs Eddie Howe has become all too familiar with being second-guessed. Newcastle’s manager is currently struggling to shrug off the Amazon camera crew tailing him at almost every turn as it makes the latest instalment of its “All or Nothing” fly-on-the-wall football documentary series. It is not something Howe particularly wanted to participate in but the club’s Saudi Arabian majority owners were keen for Newcastle to follow in the footsteps of Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham in offering a new audience a window into their world. Continue reading...

A new documentary looks at what Nigeria’s success in the 1990s meant to its people, including the daughter of the executed activist Ken Saro-Wiwa It may be more than 25 years since Celestine Babayaro was part of the Nigeria men’s football team that made history by winning a gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta as a teenager, but the former Chelsea and Newcastle defender still retains his youthful exuberance when he thinks back to that moment. “As soon as we landed it felt like 200 million people were there to celebrate,” recalls the now 44-year-old at the end of a new documentary, , which tells the story of their remarkable achievement. “There was loads of happiness in Nigeria – people were just going crazy on the streets. That tournament made a lot of difference.” Continue reading...

* Fixtures in Sydney on 24 March and Melbourne on 28 March * Graham Arnold to name almost identical squad to one in Qatar The next World Cup cycle has begun in earnest for Graham Arnold, who will use two freshly announced home friendlies this month to inform his approach to the 2026 qualifiers and next January’s Asian Cup. The Socceroos will host Ecuador at Sydney’s CommBank Stadium on 24 March and Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on 28 March, in two homecoming games designed to celebrate the team’s remarkable progression to the knockout stages of Qatar 2022. Continue reading...

* Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim lodged offers at £4.5bn * Americans may compromise but deal more likely in May The Glazers are intent on securing a higher fee for Manchester United than the initial bids of Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, which were lodged at a maximum of £4.5bn. It leaves the American family’s wish to close any deal by the end of March looking unlikely. The bids from Thani, via the Qatari’s Nine Two Foundation, and Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest person and the owner of Ineos, were lodged less than a fortnight ago. Among the six Glazer siblings it is understood there is indecision because each has their own intentions but the sale is still under serious consideration by the family as a whole. Continue reading...

* Manager says late surge in 2020-21 can serve as inspiration * ‘If there is a club that can do it I really think it is us’ Jürgen Klopp believes Liverpool are the one club capable of producing the late-season flourish needed to break into the top four. Liverpool trail fourth-placed Tottenham by nine points in the race for Champions League qualification but have two games in hand, the first at home against Wolves on Wednesday. Since losing 3-0 at Molineux in February, Klopp’s team have taken seven points from three Premier League matches. The Liverpool manager insists recent history, notably the 10-game unbeaten run that secured Champions League football in 2020-21, should convince his players they can end a trying campaign on a similar high. Continue reading...