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Manchester City conquer the Bernabéu, Liverpool survive without Mohamed Salah and Atalanta find Chelsea’s flaws

• To say that Pep Guardiola and Real Madrid have history is to put it mildly. At Barcelona, Guardiola grew up amid an obsessive enmity on both sides, one deepened by his term as the Catalan club’s coach. They are highly familiar with Manchester City, too. City met Madrid for the fifth season in succession on Wednesday. Despite Madrid’s recent struggles under Xabi Alonso, winning at the Santiago Bernabéu is a huge result, a deserved win where City might have been out of sight by half-time. Rodrygo scored his habitual goal against City but one of Guardiola’s new generation in Nico O’Reilly equalised before a controversial penalty award, converted by Erling Haaland, decided the game. A player linked with a move to Madrid sometime in the distant future celebrated with a smirk; Jude Bellingham’s attempt to distract by trying to yank Haaland’s ponytail did not work. After the selection misstep that led to defeat to Bayer Leverkusen, Guardiola got it right in Madrid to leave a lifelong rival in flux. In acknowledging an opponent wracked by injury and infighting had made for an easier task than usual, high standards came to the fore. “I’ve been here [at the Bernabéu] many times in the last five years and we have played much better than today and not won,” Guardiola said. He talks – and his team plays – like he has his mojo back.

Despite signs of renewed intensity, Real Madrid fell to their second loss in four days against Manchester City. How long can a positive reaction overshadow negative results?

No attacker in Real Madrid’s history had gone without a goal for as long as Rodrygo but at last he was released and he had a message to deliver, performed for public consumption. The Brazilian, who had not scored in nine months and was starting only his fifth game this season, beat Gianluigi Donnarumma to give them the lead against Manchester City. Then he turned and ran towards the touchline to embrace Xabi Alonso, the manager on the edge for whom this could prove an even greater release.

“It’s a difficult moment for him, like it is for us,” Rodrygo said. “Things aren’t coming off and I wanted to show people that we are together with the coach. People say a lot of things and I just wanted to show that we are united. We need that unity to keep going.” By the time Rodrygo spoke, the lead had been taken from them, another loss taking its place. City had turned it around, going 2-1 ahead with “very little”, Alonso said. That can happen when you’re in a “delicate” state, he added, but at least Madrid had reacted. This time they could not complete a comeback. Endrick, on as a substitute having played 11 minutes all season, hit the bar in the dying moments.

• Operating profit up after £7m loss a year earlier

• United’s revenue down from £143.1m to £140.3m

Manchester United’s operating profit rose to £13m in the financial year’s first quarter compared with an equivalent £7m loss 12 months earlier, with the chief executive, Omar Berrada, stating this was down to “the difficult decisions made in the past year” by Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

Since Ratcliffe became the largest minority owner in February 2024, his budgetary adjustments have included making about 450 redundancies, which will take the head count to about 800. The Ineos chair has also ended Sir Alex Ferguson’s ambassadorial role, saving about £2m a-year, and cut free lunches for United employees.

• UK tourists would be among those affected by US policy

• ‘Unacceptable’ and ‘chilling’, says European fan group

A plan to require supporters travelling to the United States for the World Cup to disclose information about their social media accounts has been described as “profoundly unacceptable”.

Tourists from 42 countries, including the UK, which use the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (Esta) as part of the visa waiver programme would be obliged to provide information about accounts they have held in the last five years in their applications. Previously it had been optional to provide the information.

Crowds at women’s football in England are the envy of the world but there is a curious gap between number of tickets sold and attendances

When the stadium announcer reads out the attendance during England home games, the immediate question that follows relates to the drop-off between the number of tickets sold and the number of fans through the doors.

In 2025, on either side of a phenomenal European title defence in Switzerland, the Lionesses played eight home games, including three at Wembley. Across those fixtures, almost 48,000 bought tickets but stayed away.

Youthful side struggles off the ball and head coach knows more control is needed to take big prizes this season

‘Some things were happening,” Josko Gvardiol said, with glorious understatement, as he reflected on the chaos of Manchester City’s start at Real Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday night. The defender had been guilty of a lapse at the very outset, caught in possession, Madrid suddenly in and running. Then, there was the penalty that was not.

It was a reckless swipe in the third minute by Matheus Nunes on Vinícius Júnior, the referee, Clément Turpin, pointing to the spot only for the VAR to step in and rule that the offence was fractionally outside the area. City’s heads spun and a tone was set. The opening half-hour was an uncomfortable experience for them and, by the time that spell had ended, Madrid were 1-0 up through Rodrygo and looking good for a much-needed victory.

• Chloe Kelly and Hannah Hampton make the shortlist

• McIlroy, Littler, Norris and Kildunne also up for award

The England teammates Chloe Kelly and Hannah Hampton are up against one another for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award on a shortlist that includes Lando Norris, Rory McIlroy, Luke Littler and Ellie Kildunne.

Kelly and Hampton were at the centre of England’s penalty shootout win over Spain in the Euro 2025 final, with Kelly scoring the winning spot-kick after Hampton had made two critical saves. For Kelly, it came after a difficult period personally, but after leaving Manchester City for Arsenal within months she was a European champion and Champions League winner. Hampton’s heroics led to the Chelsea player lifting the Yashin Trophy for the world’s best female goalkeeper at the Ballon d’Or awards.

At the scene of one of his Europa League final triumphs, the manager is setting targets to achieve success with Villa

For Unai Emery, there was a welcome air of familiarity upon arrival at Basel’s St Jakob-Park on Wednesday. It was a return to Switzerland and the scene of his third Europa League triumph with Sevilla in 2016, when his side overcame Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, 3-1.

“This competition is so, so special for me,” the Aston Villa manager said. “We won here, it was a fantastic day and is a fantastic memory. To remember it is very good.” And then came a big but. Two, in fact. “I want to build a new moment, a new era, a new way with Aston Villa. I can remind myself of the moment I had here.”

• Organisers confirm ‘Pride Match’ activities will take place

• Seattle to host Egypt v Iran in Group G next summer

Plans to celebrate LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms in Seattle during the World Cup next summer will continue despite objections from the Egyptian and Iranian football federations over the “Pride Match” due to take place in the city.

Seattle organisers have confirmed that they are “moving forward as planned” with Pride activities in the city when Egypt face Iran in Group G on 26 June. Rainbow flags will also be allowed into the stadium by Fifa.

The hosts battled against Manchester City but a second successive home defeat pushes manager towards exit

On the night they were going to sack him, Xabi Alonso watched his team rise against their fate and perhaps his, but fall again. He listened to the fans whistle and the final whistle, embraced the man who had been his mentor and then, defeated for the second time in four days here, disappeared straight down the Bernabéu tunnel without looking back. Real Madrid had taken the game to Manchester City, going ahead first and chasing another comeback later. But in the end, in the words of Rodrygo, whose first goal in 33 games had given them hope, “it was not enough”.

The question now is whether it will be enough to rescue the coach Rodrygo had run to embrace, a gesture of solidarity on the edge of the abyss. Late last Sunday night in one of the offices here, some in the club’s hierarchy had been determined to get rid of the coach who had presided over two wins in seven. The sentence was suspended but this was set up as something of a final judgment and, having extended that run to an eighth game, there is no guarantee Alonso will be back. Nor though is there any guarantee that he won’t.

I’ve spent too many wet and windy Friday afternoons preparing set-piece routines and it’s not a pretty sight

By Nutmeg magazine

Set pieces, eh, those brief but frequent interludes that sporadically pockmark our weekly sacrament, filling our heads with daydreams and fantasies of intricately worked ruses or 30-yard thunderbolts. Quite often the unintentional birth child of an ugly hacked clearance or theatrical swan dive, they ordinarily result in nothing more than a rudimentary blemish upon hallowed turf canvas but, sometimes, just sometimes, we are treated to strokes of genius that become as entrenched in the memory as is the Lord’s Prayer.

When asked to provide a dose of professional insight detailing the fastidious workings that go into each and every single stoppage in play, it got me to thinking: have we lost an element of ingenuity in the pursuit of perfection? My dad has always warned me against the pitfalls of starting a game slowly so, with that pearl of wisdom well heeded, I’ll get things under way with a bang, a no-nonsense punt into touch from the very first whistle, the sort that’s recently stormed back into fashion within the upper echelons of the English game, as world-renowned coaches such as Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta do their damndest at reinventing a century-old wheel.

Glitzy draws, OJ-era chaos, grass laid over AstroTurf and a host nation that barely cared – the 1994 World Cup arrived amid suspicion and slapstick. Yet it became a watershed that would alter US sport and global football politics alike

“The United States was chosen,” the columnist George Vecsey wrote in the New York Times in 1994, “because of all the money to be made here, not because of any soccer prowess. Our country has been rented as a giant stadium and hotel and television studio.” Nobody could seriously doubt that. The USA had played in only two World Cups since the second world war and hadn’t had a national professional league for a decade. And that meant there was a great deal of skepticism from outsiders, even after Fifa made it clear there would be no wacky law changes to try to appeal to the domestic audience: Would anybody actually turn up to watch?

But there was also hostility in the United States. A piece in USA Today on the day of the draw told Americans they were right not to care about the World Cup, what it sneeringly described as the biggest sport in “Cameroon, Uruguay and Madagascar”. “Hating soccer,” wrote the columnist Tom Weir, “is more American than mom’s apple pie, driving a pickup or spending Saturday afternoon channel surfing with the remote control.”

Excerpted from The Power And The Glory by Jonathan Wilson, copyright © 2025 by Jonathan Wilson. Used with permission of Bold Type Books, an imprint of Basic Books Group, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

The Chelsea captain, Millie Bright, had dismissed any suggestions that the team were in crisis after a first league defeat in 34 games, and six goals in a comprehensive victory against Roma in their penultimate game of the Champions League group phase put those thoughts to bed.

An own goal broke the fight of Roma early on, with further goals from Wieke Kaptein, Johanna Rytting Kaneryd, Sjoeke Nüsken, Maika Hamano and Lucy Bronze.

This was an evening of notable milestones for Arsenal and Gabriel Martinelli, although there was no smile broader than Noni Madueke’s. The England forward was subjected to a ridiculous online petition that opposed his move across London from Chelsea in the summer. But on a rare appearance on the right flank as Bukayo Saka was given a welcome rest, Madueke scored a fantastic individual goal before adding a second after half-time to set up a comfortable victory for Mikel Arteta’s side.

It means Arsenal have become only the fifth English team to win their opening six matches of a Champions League or European Cup campaign and now need only a point from their remaining two to rubber‑stamp their progress directly to the last 16, even if in reality it is already a formality thanks to their superior goal difference.

Eighty-eight minutes had passed and Newcastle fans were already in party mode when Alejandro Grimaldo collected Ibrahim Maza’s pass and concluded a move he had initiated courtesy of a glorious run and dummy.

As the Spain left wing-back’s shot slid beneath Aaron Ramsdale’s body and his Bayer Leverkusen teammates celebrated an arguably deserved equaliser, North Rhine-Westphalia suddenly felt a much colder place for Eddie Howe’s players.

• Ajax win 4-2 at Qarabag; Juventus edge out Pafos

• Copenhagen stun Villarreal; Bodø/Glimt hold Dortmund

Benfica’s Richard Ríos scored one goal and set up another to seal a vital 2-0 victory against Napoli on Wednesday, boosting the Portuguese side’s hopes of reaching the Champions League knockout stage.

The result reignited Benfica’s European campaign, clinching a second consecutive win after a poor start and lifting them to six points and up to 25th place, just one point outside the playoff spots. Napoli slipped to 23rd on seven points.

• ‘It’s going to be the club’s and his decision,’ midfielder says

• Curtis Jones insists squad is firmly behind Arne Slot

Dominik Szoboszlai has said the Liverpool dressing room will have no influence over Mohamed Salah’s next move because only the player and the club can decide how their standoff ends.

Salah missed Liverpool’s valuable Champions League win at Inter on Tuesday having been left out of Arne Slot’s squad in response to his highly critical interview at Leeds. The 33‑year‑old forward could also be absent when Brighton visit Anfield on Saturday. He is due to report for Africa Cup of Nations duty with Egypt on Monday.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Nicky Bandini and Lars Sivertsen as a Salah-less Liverpool win in Inter, Chelsea lose to Atalanta and Spurs beat Slavia Prague. On the podcast today: Liverpool win in Milan against Inter. They needed a result, any result – and they got it thanks to Alessandro Bastoni pulling Florian Wirtz’s shirt. Elsewhere, Chelsea lose in Bergamo – since we asked if anyone should start taking them seriously they’ve given us a categoric response. A second comfortable home win for Spurs in a few days – sounds odd to say that. It was only Slavia Prague, but again Xavi Simmons ran the show. Plus, Manchester United win 4-1 against Wolves, there’s some EFL and your questions answered.

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Plus: players popping up randomly on TV, triple-doubles in names and which match featured the most Ballon d’Or winners?

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“While scanning the Champions League fixtures, I noticed that Pafos FC of Cyprus have a person’s face on their badge (Cypriot freedom fighter Evagoras Pallikarides),” writes Paul Savage. “Other than faces of legendary characters (Ajax), do any other badges have people on them?”

This was one of the more popular Knowledge questions of 2025. We received dozens of answers – thanks one and all – that referenced clubs all around the world. In no particular order, here they are.

After a few nomadic years in Europe the wonder kid has ‘remembered what he is all about’, giving hope he may yet reach his immense potential

But for Emiliano Martínez’s outstretched arms, eh? A golden chance, deep in injury-time, for Australia’s wonder kid to become their golden boy, to push Argentina into an extra 30 minutes in the last 16 of the 2022 World Cup.

“Liked what you saw there? You just wait ‘til 2026,” the Guardian wrote of Garang Kuol 1,104 days ago. He had, aged 18 years and 79 days, become the youngest player to appear in the knock-out stages since Pelé in 1958.

Tributes were paid at the Valley to a familiar face who began watching games in 1968 and became an inspiration

The sudden death of the Charlton Athletic supporter Norman Barker has touched countless lives far beyond the club’s south-east London home. The Addicks’ Championship match against Portsmouth on Saturday was halted on 12 minutes after fans alerted the officials to a medical emergency in the North Stand. The players were taken down the tunnel and the game was later abandoned. Barker died in hospital soon after.

Barker – widely known in SE7 as “Headphones Norm” because he was always seen wearing a pair – began going to Charlton in 1968. It is clear from an interview he did in 2020 that it was love at first sight. That led him to follow the club into his 60s and become ever-present at Addicks games and a very familiar figure.

In an exclusive interview, the former World Cup winner talks about taking Uzbekistan to the 2026 World Cup and a project close to his heart in Naples

Uzbekistan may have made history by qualifying for the World Cup for the first time in the country’s 34 years of independence in June after losing only once in 15 qualifiers. But they then had a problem: Timur Kapadze stepped down and they needed a head coach for next year’s tournament.

They turned to Fabio Cannavaro, Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning captain and Ballon d’Or winner, who has had a rich and varied coaching career and was ready to take on the challenge of managing a nation still taking its first steps in international football.

In 2010 and 2022, the US faced heightened emotions from the lead-in to the tournament itself. As hosts next year, little will change

The draw is done. The schedule is set. For the US men’s national team, all that’s left, aside from playing the games, are the emotional highs and lows. After the draw, US head coach Mauricio Pochettino referenced a “competitive stress” factor triggered by the World Cup. He said the friendlies against Belgium and Portugal in March are intended to simulate that stress so that it doesn’t surprise his players when the spotlight of the World Cup arrives.

With the margins always thin at a World Cup, earning results that mitigate that pressure could prove to be the difference between the USMNT crashing out just when they capture the undivided attention of the nation, or enduring and soaring to a best-ever finish.

In an exclusive interview the younger Chawinga sister talks about missing her older sibling Tabitha, her hopes for Malawi and life at Kansas City Current

Kansas City Current’s Temwa Chawinga has doubled up as the NWSL’s top scorer and MVP for the second year in a row – only two years after Tabitha, her elder sister and mentor, was the Golden Boot winner with Internazionale in Italy’s Serie A Femminile. It is no exaggeration to describe the duo, from Malawi, as football’s equivalent of the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena.

“I hope Temwa and I get to meet them someday,” Tabitha says of the tennis legends. Now with French side OL Lyonnes, the 29-year-old insists that her younger sibling will have a more distinguished career despite setting an extremely high bar in the Swedish, Chinese and Italian leagues, in which Chawinga has won several Golden Boot and MVP awards.

Club legends in opposing dugouts, Turin giants as underdogs against the juggernaut Partenopei … it was a weird night at the Maradona

The man with the Napoli tattoo was met with hostile whistles on his return to the Stadio Maradona. Luciano Spalletti had the club’s emblem inked on to his arm, together with a Scudetto badge, after leading the Partenopei to their third Serie A title in 2023. The design made it appear as though someone had torn into his flesh, revealing his true essence, a connection more than just skin deep.

But then he accepted the manager’s job at Juventus. For many Napoli supporters this was the ultimate sin, joining the club they hate the most. From others there was a measure of understanding. Spalletti had been out of work for four months after being sacked by the Italian national team in the middle of an ailing World Cup qualifying campaign. The opportunity to succeed Igor Tudor in Turin at the end of October was a chance to get his career back on track.

HSV are back in the Bundesliga and remain a huge club even if they have adjusted expectations this season

Alexander Røssing-Lelesiit did not play for Hamburg in Sunday’s stellar win, and he will hope that his career has more decisive contributions than this one in store. As the final whistle went on a breathless Nordderby victory over Werder Bremen, the 18-year-old bobbed in front of the visitors’ bench and celebrated wildly, prompting some afters between the two squads in a game that bubbled excitedly without exploding into disorder.

Those from Bremen were less than impressed. Justin Njinmah, who had looked like saving a point for Werder when equalising at 2-2 less than 10 minutes after coming on as a substitute, named no names but complained that “some injured HSV players ran on to the field and thought they had to gesticulate and talk shit. That pisses me off. But I guess that’s part of a derby.”

Yes, this is a derby, and then some. Njinmah needed no reminding – he is from Hamburg after all – but there has been plenty of time to forget just how big this is. Sunday’s edition was the first top-flight Nordderby in 2,843 days, and it didn’t disappoint. If Werder’s goal to take the lead at the end of the first half, an ice-cold finish by Jens Stage, felt like it might have been transplanted from a different game, the blue touchpaper was really lit after the interval. Albert Sambi Lokonga levelled for Hamburg just after the hour, as the roof raised and the emotion started to flow.

Ever since the club’s very beginning, David Beckham and Jorge Mas have had moments like this Saturday in mind

Back on 27 February 2020, days before Inter Miami’s first-ever fixture in MLS, I stood next to the club’s managing owner, Jorge Mas, and co-owner David Beckham as part of an MLS press junket in New York City. I was there for Sports Illustrated and my show Planet Fútbol TV, which I co-hosted with my friend, the late, great Grant Wahl. We were adamant that the Inter Miami story was riveting, not just because of Beckham’s influence in MLS, but also because his new club was about to introduce the unique culture of Miami and south Florida – the Latin American capital of the world – to the league.

The conversation in 2020 was my second meeting with Mas and my first with Beckham. I remember the sense of excitement from both men, knowing that this Inter Miami project – seven years in the making before their debut in the league – was about to come to fruition after a long, arduous journey. From legal battles with Internazionale over the trademark of the word “Inter” to political and structural problems as they tried to make a stadium, Miami Freedom Park, a reality. Now, the club was finally starting life in MLS.

• US drew Australia, Paraguay, Euro play-off team

• Pochettino: friendlies tell little about WC tests

• Manage wants ‘final’ mindset for every match

Mauricio Pochettino said that it is “neither an advantage nor a disadvantage” that the United States’ World Cup group consists of two – and perhaps three – teams that his team will have played in friendlies within a year or so before kickoff of their opening game.

The US were drawn with Australia, Paraguay and the winner of a European play-off involving Turkey, Romania, Kosovo and Slovakia. The US played Australia in a friendly in October, winning 2-1 in Commerce City, Colorado. They played Paraguay in another friendly in November – a game that marked Gio Reyna’s return to form with the national team in a 2-1 win. Turkey, should they make it through the play-off, would have a leg up on preparations, having beaten the US 2-1 in a pre-Gold Cup friendly in June 2025.

How each team qualified, who will be favourites to progress to the knockout stage and which games to look out for

The opening game in the Azteca will be a repeat of the opener in 2010 when South Africa drew 1-1 with Mexico in Soccer City, Soweto. Mexico have won one knockout game at the World Cup, beating Bulgaria last time they hosted, in 1986. Their manager, Javier Aguirre, was a forward in that side and will be targeting their third quarter-final as hosts. South Africa, coached by the veteran Belgian Hugo Broos, qualified for their first World Cup since hosting, finishing above Nigeria and Benin, despite having a game against Lesotho they appeared to have won awarded against them for fielding a suspended player.

Friday’s ceremony in Washington DC was cringe-inducing and craven enough to make football fans nostalgic for the reign of Sepp Blatter

Well, that was awful, wasn’t it? Donald Trump’s heroic victory over a field of one to claim the inaugural Fifa peace prize, on-stage banter so dead it was already fossilized, Gianni Infantino doing crowd work, and Wayne Gretzky struggling through the pronunciation of “Macedonia” and “Curaçao” in the draw’s linguistic group of death: even with the benefit of a few days’ distance it’s impossible to overstate how impressively bad the draw for the 2026 World Cup, held last Friday at the Trump-purged Kennedy Center in Washington DC, was.

“This is America, so we have to put on a show!” roared Fifa president Infantino, resembling a Sphinx cat in a borrowed suit, at the beginning of the ceremony. And put on a show Fifa did – just not one that anyone wanted to watch, least of all a desperately bored-looking Trump, who sat through Andrea Bocelli’s Nessun Dorma with the granitic joylessness that has become his default expression at each of the sporting events he’s ruined with his presence this year. Just let the man get back to the White House; he’s the president of the United States, for god’s sake, he has bathrooms to redesign.

So long as the Premier League invests in its players and Fifa pays it lip service, the continent’s flagship tournament will always struggle to fit in

Perhaps attitudes are not quite as parochial as they once were, but it remains true that, in England at least, the Africa Cup of Nations is discussed less as a tournament in its own right than in terms of what it means for the Premier League.

There will be the usual harrumphing about why the tournament is played in the middle of our season, but the Confederation of African Football has tried to satisfy European clubs only to be thwarted by Fifa and the increasing demands of the calendar.

Perhaps the data-soaked discourse of modern football actually does this Premier League centurion something of a disservice

Stack them up. Pile them high. Sort them and arrange them, parse them and categorise them, order them to your table like items in a Chinese restaurant. Personal favourites? Give me the No 33 against Arsenal, the one with the flowing hair. I’ll also take a No 81 against Chelsea, when he spots a hapless Robert Sánchez out of goal, and lobs him deliciously from the edge of the area.

Give me a No 98 against Bournemouth, in which he deliberately slants his run around the keeper, slots it in from a tight angle, tries to clamber atop the advertising hoardings in triumph, loses his balance, collapses in peals of giggles. And maybe chuck in a No 53 against Brentford, in which Kristoffer Ajer somehow manages to fall over without being touched, spooked into incoherence by his very presence.

Our cartoonist on the trouble at Anfield after Egyptian’s stinging response to being dropped by Arne Slot

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Mohamed Salah’s row with Liverpool follows a long line of player-club spats – here are some of the most memorable

When players break dressing-room code by airing their grievances publicly, the result is almost always the same: a breakdown of trust and an unceremonious exit. After Mohamed Salah became the latest to express his dissatisfaction, we look at the others whose explosive comments sealed their fate.

England manager happy to ‘focus on what we can influence’ after a draw that will live long in the memory and not for the right reasons

At the end of an extraordinary day in the US capital and a World Cup draw that lurched between the ridiculous and the sublime (with a greater emphasis on the former, if the truth be told), Thomas Tuchel and England now know. Croatia in Toronto or Dallas. Ghana in Boston or Toronto. Panama in New Jersey or Philadelphia. And that is just the group games.

With the excitement running wild and, well, England being England, their determination to bring it home to the fore, it was not long before the permutations were being scrutinised. It could be Mexico at the Azteca in the last 16 – the scene of the Hand of God in 1986. It could be Brazil in Miami in the quarter-finals. Tuchel pulled a face as if to say: “Wow.” There had been a lot to process. And that is before we talk about the Honourable Donald J Trump and his Fifa peace prize glory.

Clashes between rival factions are the culmination of a long-running feud involving claims of racism

It should have been a night for Crystal Palace supporters to savour. About 1,500 officially made the trip to Strasbourg for their second away match of the Conference League group stage last week, although plenty more had gathered in the pretty Alsatian city famous for its expansive Christmas market.

Yet while most were enjoying being part of Palace’s first European campaign after May’s FA Cup win, “a tiny minority” – as the club’s statement the following day described them – had different ideas. Footage of bottles and chairs being thrown as two rival groups of supporters of the same club clashed before the game in one of the city’s squares went viral on X. “Palace fans fighting each other in Strasbourg,” read the message, not surprisingly sparking widespread confusion.

Handing the Egyptian a contract extension while also bringing about a new identity has backfired terribly

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There is perhaps nothing in a career as hard as the leaving of it. Unless something utterly remarkable happens, Mohamed Salah has played his last game for Liverpool. Left out of the starting lineup for each of the last three matches, he trained on Monday after his extraordinary post-match tirade following the 3-3 draw with Leeds but he has not been selected for the Champions League against Inter on Tuesday. He may or may not be with the team for Saturday’s game at Anfield against Brighton (“I don’t know if I am going to play or not but I am going to enjoy it,” he said). After that, he will be in Morocco for the Africa Cup of Nations with the Egypt national team and the transfer window will have opened by the time the tournament is over.

How has it come to this? Salah is one of Liverpool’s all-time greats. He lies behind only Ian Rush and Roger Hunt in their all-time goalscoring charts. Across all clubs, only Alan Shearer, Harry Kane and Wayne Rooney have scored more Premier League goals. He played a key role in two Premier League titles and a Champions League. He’s won the Premier League Golden Boot four times and been named player of the year three times by both his fellow players and soccer writers – including last year. He’s only 33 and there has been no obvious sign yet of him fading with age. This is not the end anybody would have wanted.

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Won’t somebody think of the journalists? Having been forced to rewrite their on-the-whistle match reports at the speed of light due to a late equaliser, the members of the Fourth Estate covering the six-goal thriller between Leeds and Liverpool were already in a bad mood. As they took in the post-match managerial press conferences, filed the last of their follow-up copy and packed away their laptops, they had no idea their misery was about to get worse. A profession that regularly decries the pointlessness of post-match “flash” interviews, they will have been further incensed to learn that for only the third occasion in his time at the club, Mohamed Salah had elected to stop to talk to a hopeful hack. The ensuing scorched earth soliloquy was delivered with a calm composure that belied its incendiary nature and anyone who squinted could actually see the soul of a nearby Liverpool media-handler ascend from his body as he eavesdropped with mounting horror on each passing rapier thrust.

I was sorry to read this but as I’m back from my little antipodean sojourn and have reclaimed my Amex season tickets I’m happy to file a report from Brighton’s home matches if necessary. However, there’s no real need as the story rarely changes; intricate passing football, 68% possession, the away team goes 1-0 up, Hürzeler gets a yellow card, on 80 minutes everyone in the East stand goes home, Brighton get a 94th-minute equaliser exquisitely curled in from 25 yards, final whistle. Save yourselves all the trouble” – Tony Crawford.

As a concerned Liverpool fan, I really hope the club are able to sort out the dilemma with their disgruntled Egyptian talisman before the European trip this week. If they don’t, they’re risking some major Salah situation iteration alliteration: Seriously sticky San Siro Slot-Salah standoff” – Peter Oh.

Congratulations to the franchise known as Inter Miami, which sensibly doesn’t have a ‘history’ section on its website given that it had never kicked a ball before 2020, for winning the Philip F Anschutz trophy, which has an even greater history, going back all the way to 2008. Looking at what the franchise refers to as its ‘roster’, they seem to have combined some of the greatest names in world football from 10-15 years ago, like Leo Messi, Jordi Alba and Luis Suárez, with some of the greatest names in world football, like Baltasar Rodríguez, Israel Boatwright and Maximiliano Falcón” – Noble Francis.

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Unbeaten in Europe and with eight wins in eight games domestically, the club are aiming high after name change

When the Olympique Lyonnais women’s team officially became OL Lyonnes on 19 May, they came with a new mantra: “New story, same legend”. The eight-time European champions, now owned by Michele Kang and part of Kynisca – a multi-club ownership group dedicated to women’s sports that also already includes the Washington Spirit – are a “new project” with the aim of “developing as a women’s club with our own model”. As Kang put it: “The women’s team cannot just be a little sister to the men’s section.”

The OL Lyonnes era kicked off on 7 September, coinciding with the Lyon’s 1,000th match in the French women’s top division, against Marseille. Kang was present, alongside Mikel Zubizarreta, Kynisca’s global sporting director, who was poached from Barcelona Femení last year. On the pitch, new recruits snatched from other European clubs this summer – Jule Brand, Lily Yohannes, Ashley Lawrence, Ingrid Engen, Korbin Shrader and Marie-Antoinette Katoto – discovered what it will be like to play at the Groupama Stadium, where the men’s team plays, for the entire season.

Sports Interactive has included the women’s game after its tireless effort of collating a comprehensive database

Within minutes I am in the deep end as the Arsenal manager before the start of the 2025-26 season, sizing up a transfer budget that does not match my ambitions for the club. I am immediately at odds with the board when I launch a rogue bid to sign Aitana Bonmatí, which is immediately rejected.

I manage to recruit Alex Greenwood to shore things up in the wake of Leah Williamson’s injury and my late bid for Patri Guijarro, who wants to be part of my project, falls through at the last minute with the budget once again the problem. I demand answers from the board as to why they will not release more funds when the player-in-question wants to join, pointing out that our scouting report says she’s a necessary replacement for Lia Wälti.

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With the Sky Sports Monday Night Football cameras rolling at Molineux, Wolves fans seized the additional publicity surrounding their latest inevitable loss to stage a protest against their club’s ownership. When the match against Manchester United kicked off, they massed on the concourse, a sea of old gold and black leaving the stands conspicuously empty for the opening 10 minutes. In a moment of seemingly cosmic irony – or perhaps a cruel act of counter-defiance – referee Michael Salisbury didn’t blow his final whistle until the clock had ticked over into the 10th minute of added time. By then, the game was long over as a contest and Wolves had succumbed to another defeat, a depressing staple of their season. Fans who stayed home and watched the broadcast will have seen the affable James Maddison tell David Jones and Jamie Carragher about enjoying “the little wins” (fathering twins, getting back on the grass and growing a ducktail mullet) during his recovery from serious knee-knack. They must have been wondering if they will ever get to see Wolves register a win again.

Please! No mo’ of the low Slot-Salah show from Peter Oh (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). All his alliteration gave me a pain in the assonance. We all know, though, it’s about the dough” – Justin Kavanagh.

Surprised how negative the English commentary is about Salah. Do I really have to listen to journos and old players rant on and on about team loyalty? Last year turned out to be the final year of Kloppball, not the first year of Slotball. If a manager can’t figure out how to get along with Salah, nor get his very expensive signings to perform in a way that justifies his mistreatment of the Egyptian, he’s not up to it” – Richard McGahey.

After all the much-deserved plaudits he’s received in recent weeks, a final doff of the cap to Martin O’Neill. He rejoined Celtic after they’d just lost to Hearts, by far the best team in the Scottish Premiership (I know, I know), and then signed off with a win, promptly before they had to play against, and inevitably lose to, Hearts again. As O’Neill clearly knows, the secret to great management, like comedy, is timing” – Noble Francis.

Back in those heady days when Trevor Francis and Chris Waddle graced Sheffield Wednesday with their presence, I was working for the club’s official sponsor (the amounts involved would make everyone laugh today). This gave me access – I’m not saying I’m proud about it – to tickets for the FA Cup semi-final between Wednesday and Sheffield United played at the grand old Wembley stadium. On the big day, we all forgot that both teams had fans working for the company until the Unitedites mixed among us jumped in the air to celebrate the first goal! Fighting was avoided, and the game ended better for Wednesday (perhaps Noble Francis was also there?), although we lost to Arsenal in both cup finals that year (and didn’t get into Europe!). Anyway, I was reminded about the experience a couple of days ago when my eldest son, Santander born and bred, went to watch Racing play away at Cádiz and could only get a ticket to sit with the home fans. With a certain amount of luck and perhaps even some help from the ref, Racing scored in the 93rd minute to win 3-2. And yet after the game, as my son and his friends walked back to their lodgings in their green, white and black scarves, no less than five Cádiz fans approached to CONGRATULATE THEM on the win!” – Matthew Kipwell.

Arsenal feel effects of defensive injuries, Liverpool rue Konaté’s mistakes and Brentford struggle on the road

• Latest Premier League table | Top scorers

When the team sheets landed at Villa Park, Arsenal’s matchday squad again appeared imperious. Their bench included a £64m striker in Viktor Gyökeres, a trio of tricky wingers in Leandro Trossard, Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli and arguably England’s most exciting teenagers in Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri. But Arsenal arrived top-heavy, the only centre-back among the substitutes the 16-year-old Marli Salmon. By the time Emiliano Buendía clinched victory for Aston Villa with almost the final kick, it was clear Arsenal lacked the defensive solidity behind their pace-setting start; this defeat was only the fourth time since the start of 2022-23 that Mikel Arteta’s side began a league game without Gabriel Magalhães or William Saliba – and it showed. Cristhian Mosquera, potentially sidelined until the new year, was also absent. The good news for all parties – which probably extends to second-placed Manchester City – is that Arsenal and Villa will duke it out again on 30 December in the reverse fixture. Ben Fisher

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Jacob Steinberg as Chelsea lose 3-1 away at Leeds, Sunderland earn a draw at Anfield and Arsenal secure another straightforward win

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On the podcast today: another almost perfect night for Arsenal as title rivals Chelsea lose away at Leeds. The big man and big man strike partnership could turn Daniel Farke’s fortunes around.

From PSG’s Ibrahim Mbaye to Brazil’s next hope, we select some of the most talented players born in 2008. Check the progress of our classes of 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 … and go even further back. Here’s our Premier League class of 2025

We pick the best youngsters at each club born between 1 September 2008 and 31 August 2009, an age band known as first-year scholars. Check the progress of our classes of 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 … and go even further back. Here’s our 2025 world picks

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