Football (Soccer) News
Manchester United performed a stunning comeback to beat Roma on a fine night at Old Trafford
Gorton-born Butt on TV and another one on the blog. A big day for east Manchester. Both quite critical of United at the moment.
Gene Salorio asks: “So now that Nuno is back on the market, does he get a ticket to the Manchester United new manager sweepstakes?”
Continue reading...Birmingham sink Millwall to keep up good form
Norwich thump Rams and pile pressure on Eustace
Terry Devlin’s double denied Swansea the chance to take top spot in the Championship as in-form Portsmouth won 3-1 at Fratton Park.
Devlin’s first-half goal looked like it was going to be enough for Pompey but Zan Vipotnik, the Championship’s top scorer last season, won and converted an 85th-minute penalty to set up a blockbuster finale.
Continue reading...Lamine Yamal opened the scoring and pulled the strings while Raphina scored twice as Barcelona outclassed Villa
Steven Gerrard and Ally McCoist are on co-commentary duty for TNT Sports alongside Darren Fletcher in Barcelona. The sight and sound of Gerrard has reminded me to recap CarragherGate:
“Jamie Carragher has apologised to Aston Villa for using “clumsy and wrong” language when discussing the club, after club had threatened legal action. “I’d like to apologise to Aston Villa, the owners and their fans. My language this week was clumsy and wrong,” Carragher wrote on X on Saturday.
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While Football Daily hasn’t actually seen much of West Ham this season, we’ve noted enough of their results to presume they were doing OK in their attempt to bounce back to the Premier League after relegation. Less than a third of the way through the Championship season under Nuno Espírito Santo, they’d already spanked six without reply past both Wrexham and Lincoln, while scoring three or more in wins over Wolves, Derby and Bolton. However, it turns out that of the 13 matches they’ve played in a league that is famously difficult to get out of (unless you were Sheffield Wednesday last season), they have actually lost three times and currently sit in eighth place, a whopping six points off leaders Middlesbrough. Given the context of such an unbridgeable chasm, it is small wonder West Ham fans woke up to news that Nuno had been unceremoniously bounced out of the London Stadium with a P45 in hand.
While my heart aches for Jesús de Miguel, who has died after a collision with the Andorra goalkeeper Jesús Owono, I shudder to think the trauma that shall haunt Owono for the rest of his life. I do hope and pray the wider community understands and extends their support in his recuperation” – Krishna Moorthy.
As an upgrade to Steve Plever’s suggestion of paper thin shirts [Monday’s letters]: how about Velcro shirts? If the bit comes off, it is a shirt pull and the offender has the honour of putting it back in place before being awarded a yellow card” – Mike Harold.
To dive or not to dive seems to be biggest dilemma in the Premier League right now. It’s not. The problem with today’s highly paid professionals is that they simply have no panache at all when they go down. I recall watching Francis Lee pick up the ball on the halfway line at a mud soaked Maine Road in the late 1960s, he put his head down and headed for goal, he was determined, he was single minded. He was 30 yards from goal, he was in full flow. He was tackled from behind and then he really took off, he grew wings, he soared. I swear he landed in the penalty area over 10 yards away. He dragged himself to his feet and without a semblance of a smile smashed the well-deserved penalty, with a very heavy leather ball straight at the centre of the goal at over 70 mph. The goalkeeper, obviously no fool, simply dived out of the way. The press christened him “Lee Won Pen” He was my hero. That man had panache, he had style” – Myles Flynn.
I am interested to read that Aston Villa considered the words of Jamie Carragher “unacceptable insults”. It would obviously help matters if they could publish examples of acceptable insults” – Rupert Jeffery.
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Continue reading...West Ham intent on instant return to Premier League
Nuno took over from Graham Potter in September 2025
West Ham are poised to appoint Scott Parker as their manager after sacking Nuno Espírito Santo. Parker has been out of work since leaving Burnley last season but there is optimism he will be in place when West Ham visit Cardiff City on Wednesday.
The club kept faith with Nuno after their relegation from the Premier League last season but patience has snapped with the side eighth in the Championship after the 3-1 defeat by West Bromwich Albion last Saturday.
Continue reading...The expanded Champions League is often shapeless, but Aston Villa’s manager returning to the scene of his greatest trauma stands out
“One more match. Just one more match.” Sure, Unai. Sure. Just like all the other matches that generated a local tremor measured at 1 on the Richter scale when that seventh and final goal went in at the Camp Nou in March 2017.
It was inevitable that Unai Emery would be asked about the Remontada game on the eve of Aston Villa’s Champions League engagement with Barcelona, his own first trip back to the Camp Nou in this competition since one of the most visceral and traumatic experiences of his managerial career.
Continue reading...Thierno Barry’s fourth goal in six games was enough to give Everton the win against a poor Newcastle, who had Jacob Ramsey sent off late on
Jaissle tells Sky Elanga is improving physically and deserves to start today; he wants him and Osula to show their potential, and both have the speed to cause any defence problems. His team have to be ruthless in both boxes, using every opportunity to score, and if they do it should be a great result.
Moyes says Rohl is adaptable, likewise O’Brien, so moving them isn’t a problem. Every team knows every other team, so he’s not expecting any surprises.
Continue reading...Sunday’s win at Liverpool showed the Gunners are deeper, more experienced, and are playing against a weaker class of contenders than last season
Arsenal are three points clear at the top of the Premier League table. But given the team in second are Manchester City, who are likely to be facing at the very least a major points deduction, perhaps more significant is that they are five clear of Brighton in third. The season of domination that many anticipated from the champions appears to be coming to pass.
Liverpool challenged them on Sunday. There was a 20-minute spell before half-time when they swarmed all over Arsenal, and Anfield felt at least like it did in the golden years of Jürgen Klopp, when it buzzed with an energy that could overwhelm visitors. But Arsenal got through that, reset at half-time, and navigated the second half with relative comfort. For the second league game running, they denied Liverpool a shot on target.
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Continue reading...Defender expected to keep place after red card at Chelsea
Martínez’s ‘commitment is not an issue’, says Carrick
Michael Carrick has insisted he is not concerned about Lisandro Martínez’s attitude despite the defender’s recent outburst aimed at the Manchester United hierarchy which was then followed by his reckless sending off in the defeat against Chelsea at the weekend.
Martínez, who was fined for his comments about United’s director of football, Jason Wilcox, is expected to keep his place for the visit of Roma in the Champions League on Tuesday as United aim to end their worst run in 38 years, having failed to win any of their past nine matches.
Continue reading...Inspired by the legendary Milan sides of his youth, the manager gave his side a lift with a tactical victory over Inter
Ruben Amorim had waited a lifetime for his first Milan derby. As a kid growing up in Lisbon, he supported two football teams. There was the local one, Benfica, whose games he attended so early in life that his father has recalled changing nappies in the stands of the old Estádio da Luz. And the other one that captivated him from overseas.
“I remember watching tapes of that Milan team with [Paolo] Maldini, [Franco] Baresi, [Ruud] Gullit, [Frank] Rijkaard, [Dejan] Savicevic,” Amorim told Portuguese newspaper Expresso back in 2017. “My childhood dreams were to play for Benfica and Milan. I’ve fulfilled one. Now I suppose I’ll have to become a coach for the other!”
Continue reading...Favourites for promotion sit eighth in Championship
Key figures at club losing patience with manager
Nuno Espírito Santo’s future at West Ham is under threat after a disappointing start to the season. West Ham are struggling to live up to their billing as Championship favourites and dropped to eighth after losing 3-1 to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.
West Ham are intent on an instant return to the Premier League after Nuno failed to save them from relegation last season, but the setback against West Brom put another dent in their promotion push. West Ham occupy the final playoff spot after consecutive defeats at home and are four points below second placed Swansea. Nuno is expected to be given time to turn the situation around but key figures have become increasingly impatient. The manager faced unrest from supporters during the West Brom game.
Continue reading...Marco Rose’s tactics are lifting Bournemouth, Roméo Lavia makes progress with Chelsea and Roberto De Zerbi gives youth a chance at Spurs
Good defending is the mark of champions. At Anfield, where Arsenal had not won in the past 13 visits, Mikel Arteta followed the orthodoxy of locking down once his team took the lead. This time around, it proved successful. Arsenal did not allow the occasion or the stadium to get to them as they have on previous occasions. In April 2023, Granit Xhaka entangling with Trent Alexander-Arnold energised home fans previously despondent that Arsenal were 2-0 up. It finished 2-2. On Sunday, Liverpool zipped around zestfully, as Andoni Iraola requests, though the final-ball quality was lacking. That owed a great deal to the organisation of the Arsenal defence. Ahead of the last international break, Brighton set a blueprint for getting the better of Arsenal in winning 3-0. Liverpool’s squad profile might have made a similar strategy possible though Iraola’s outfit is struggling to create chances in the same volume as Brighton or his Bournemouth team. John Brewin
Match report: Liverpool 0-1 Arsenal
Reaction: Iraola responds to Isak penalty denial
Match report: Aston Villa 1-1 Fulham
Match report: Bournemouth 2-0 Leeds United
Continue reading...Bellingham and Diomandé complete 3-0 win over Racing
Lazio top Serie A after fighting back to beat Cagliari
Kylian Mbappé moved on from a tumultuous week by scoring a penalty to help Real Madrid win 3-0 at Racing Santander on Sunday.
The French forward narrowly lost out on the Ballon d’Or to Bayern Munich’s Harry Kane on Monday and then had to apologise after a social media storm following a video in which he joked about the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong.
Continue reading...Kai Havertz’s goal was enough to give Arsenal their first win at Anfield since September 2012 and take them three points clear at the top of the table
So where is the game? Liverpool will look to get men around the ball when Arsenal have it, opening the pitch for switches should they win possession. And when they don’t, they’ll run like mad to recover it, stretching play and passing forwards, facilitating that by conserving energy every now and again when Nyoni slows the game down.
In particular, I expect they’ll ask Bradley Barcola to target the space left when Riccardo Calafiori goes off on adventures, with Alexander Isak pulling away for cut-backs and shooting quickly with little backlift, while Florian Wirtz looks to slip passes in behind – if he can work quickly enough in the maelstrom of the match.
Continue reading...Buildup to Sunday’s action, with a bumper WSL fixture list before Liverpool host Arsenal in the Premier League
It is not going well for Oliver Glasner at Nottingham Forest, to say the least.
“For me, I go home and have breakfast with my family, so it’s not the worst situation,” Glasner said. “Nobody needs to have pity with Oliver Glasner. If I want, I could start in two weeks somewhere else. I won’t do it. But the players, the staff, they remain in the same situation. And it’s the same shit situation that the club had last year. So you need to change and rebuild from the bottom to the top. And this is clear for me. And this is what I will do. And without any compromises, zero, zero.”
Régis Le Bris, Sunderland’s head coach, said: “I don’t think they are not aware of the situation. We are exposed this season with this busy schedule, it’s really demanding.
“Is it unexpected? I don’t think so. Many clubs last year experienced exactly the same situation. First year in Europe, you know you will have on average 10 less points. It’s our reality.
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