Category: English Premier League

German and French clubs are showing in the Champions League they can make the most of the benefits of not having to play in a gruelling domestic competition

Paris Saint-Germain have won 11 of the past 13 French league titles and, going into this weekend, stood four points clear of Lens at the top of Ligue 1. Bayern Munich have already wrapped up this season’s Bundesliga title, their 13th in 14 years. According to Deloitte, Bayern are the third-richest club in the world by revenue, PSG fourth.

They meet in the Champions League semi-finals on Tuesday as two modern super-clubs. The idea of a top-five European league feels outmoded. Rather there are the best Premier League clubs, plus perhaps five or six others of whom PSG and Bayern are the outstanding two still left in this season’s competition.

Continue reading...

Roberto De Zerbi had said he wanted no crying in his camp after Brighton scored their late equaliser last week, and it was just as the Wolves fans had started chanting “You’re going to cry in a minute” that the substitute João Palhinha struck the goal that briefly helped Tottenham climb out of the relegation zone and avoid a club record of 16 consecutive league games without a win.

The Spurs manager ran on to the pitch, pumping his fists, after the Portugal midfielder, played onside by the former Spurs defender Matt Doherty, slid in to score after Richarlison had scuffed a shot goalwards when Pedro Porro’s corner fell his way in the 82nd minute.

Continue reading...

Eberechi Eze’s early goal was enough to secure a win against Newcastle and keep Arsenal’s title dream within reach

Mikel Arteta’s pre-match thoughts

[On making only one change from the City game] We did a lot of great things, with some connections that we really liked througout the game.

[On how long Bukayo Saka might be able to play from the bench] We will see how the game goes. We have alternatives in the front line to change the game; we’ll use them in the right way.

Continue reading...

⚽ Premier League updates from the 12.30pm BST kick-off
⚽ Live scores | Table | Follow us on Bluesky | And mail Tim

2 min The first foul is committed by Morgan Rogers, needlessly, on Sander Berge – they were in the centre circle.

1 min Fulham kick off and play the ball around at the back. They’re in all white, so they bear a very slight resemblance to Real Madrid. Villa are in a lot of claret and a little blue.

Continue reading...

Fans of both sides are feeling similar levels of stress at different ends of the Premier League table

Zadie Smith once wrote that “the square mile around Arsenal’s stadium could be a suitable surrogate for the whole wide world”. Perhaps you only really glimpse this on a match day, when the jerk chicken grills and paella pans fire up and belch delicious smoke across the rows of terraced houses, when the locals in weathered replica shirts brush shoulders with tourists bearing selfie sticks, when a small group of dedicated volunteers at a kiosk by the Ken Friar Bridge accepts non-perishable donations for the Islington food bank.

And you shall scoff, and you shall sneer, because there is a north London of the popular imagination, and Islington in particular, which has become a surrogate for something else entirely. A slur, an insult, a byword for privilege and entitlement and metropolitan effeteness, the place of Blair and Corbyn and Starmer and a shrink on every street corner. North London is elite, north London is out of touch, north London looks down on the rest of you while eating plates of £16 pasta.

Continue reading...

Elliot Anderson completed a stunning victory for Forest, who moves eight points clear of relegation after thrashing Sunderland

3 min A regrettable square pass from Sadiki, deep in his own half, is nicked by Hutchinson. Alderete makes an immportant challenge on the edge of the area and Anderson’s long-range shot deflects over the bar for a corner.

The corner is half cleared to Williams, who mishits a difficult volley well wide.

Continue reading...

Erling Haaland scored early and Manchester City controlled most of the game as Burnley’s relegation was confirmed

1 min: Scott Parker has put on a grey top over his grey sweater. I think this calls his coaching credentials into question: can you be inspired by a man who seems obsessed with the colour grey?

1 min: Peeeep! City get the ball rolling.

Continue reading...

The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions. Today, Graham Ruthven endeavors to answer three of them

With his Copa del Rey winners medal around his neck, Pellegrino Matarazzo struggled to find the words to sum up his remarkable journey from Fair Lawn, New Jersey, via Italy and Germany to a historic triumph as Real Sociedad manager.

Continue reading...

Brighton rose to sixth place after punishing a Chelsea performance their manager, Liam Rosenior, described as ‘unacceptable’

2 min: Chelsea still have the ball. They’ve had one attack, in which Hinshelwood was brought down a few yards outside the penalty area but it looked like the referee was looking the other way, as presumably were his assistants, so no free kick.

1 min: Peeeeeep! It’s Brighton who get the game under way.

Continue reading...

Slowly but surely, West Ham are edging their way to safety. While this battling draw against a Crystal Palace side with their minds elsewhere proved terminal to his former club Wolves as it confirmed their relegation, Nuno Espírito Santo had to be satisfied with a point after Brennan Johnson missed the best chance to boost his former employers Tottenham.

Palace, who have now been involved in eight stalemates this season, were indebted to captain Dean Henderson for producing the save of the night to deny Konstantinos Mavropanos just before half-time, although West Ham struggled to create much else. Nuno will be disappointed not to have stretched their advantage over Tottenham to four points, although their fate remains very much in their hands with David Moyes’s Everton next up on Saturday.

Continue reading...

Manchester City eked a win by the slimmest of margins on Sunday, setting up a season finale that will be determined by nerves

• Sign up for the World Behind The Cup newsletter

It was probably Arsenal’s best performance in two months, but that will be scant consolation. Manchester City’s win on Sunday leaves Pep Guardiola’s side in control of the title race; they will go top of the Premier League on goal difference if they beat Burnley at Turf Moor on Wednesday. Both sides will then have five games to play.

Sunday’s game was decided by desperately fine margins. What prevented Eberechi Eze’s whipped shot from just outside the box going in? An inch? Half of one? Gabriel also struck the woodwork, while Kai Havertz headed a great chance a fraction over the crossbar in injury time. It was a defeat that has handed City the advantage in the title race, but it could very easily have been a battling draw to preserve Arsenal’s lead and, perhaps more importantly, restore morale.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition

Continue reading...

Curtis Jones sums up Liverpool’s approach, Eddie Howe’s transfer record under scrutiny and Tammy Abraham shows his worth

For Manchester City, Gianluigi Donnarumma has always been a case of risk and reward. Perhaps only Thibaut Courtois is as fine a shot-stopper as Italy’s Euro 2020 hero, though many goalkeepers are better with the ball at their feet. Claudio Bravo, let alone Ederson, would be unlikely to dither in the fashion that alerted Kai Havertz to the possibility of pressing City’s keeper as close as possible for Arsenal’s goal. Donnarumma was the signing who bucked the Pep Guardiola doctrines, and his goalkeeping has been crucial to City’s revival but such mistakes have always been part of the giant Italian’s makeup. Paris Saint-Germain would not meet his wage demands, and opted for Lille’s Lucas Chevalier, a better ball-player as an ill-starred replacement. Donnarumma smothered a good chance for Havertz in the second half. His big mistake, seconds after Rayan Cherki’s opener, did not, after all, become the key twist in the title race. John Brewin

Match report: Manchester City 2-1 Arsenal

Match report: Everton 1-2 Liverpool

Match report: Tottenham 2-2 Brighton

Match report: Chelsea 0-1 Manchester United

Match report: Newcastle 1-2 Bournemouth

Continue reading...

Rayan Cherki scored one of the goals of the season but Gabriel had a game to forget and could have seen red

Gianluigi Donnarumma Nighmarish howler allowed Havert’s equaliser. Redemption – a little – came in the second period with point-blank save from the same player. 4

Continue reading...

Erling Haaland settled a pulsating clash at the Etihad to leave Arsenal ruing a series of near misses

When Pep Guardiola was preparing for the challenge of taking on Jürgen Klopp’s peak Liverpool team at Anfield in February 2021, training that week at Manchester City was a little different, according to Oleksandr Zinchenko. Guardiola’s instructions seemed counterintuitive. “Guys, let’s start from the goal-kick, I want you to make at least three or four touches on the ball,” the manager told them. “Most of the teams come to Anfield and shit themselves. They want to play one touch, two touch. ‘Oh, don’t give me the ball! Oh you take it!’ But you have to play with big balls at Anfield! Big balls! ‘Give me the ball!’ Demand it! If you need to dribble past two or three players, do it. But play football. I want you to play football.”

Zinchenko recalls that Guardiola made the same speech before they walked out at Anfield. “Teams coming here are scared. They play one or two touches, and that’s what Liverpool like, because they get the ball back so quickly. I want you to be brave. Play your football!” as Zinchenko puts it in his autobiography, Believe. Admittedly that game came in the midst of City’s record-breaking 21-game winning run that season but was also Guardiola’s first win at Anfield, so not dissimilar to the title showdown at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday with Arsenal.

Aston Villa 4-3 Sunderland

Everton 1-2 Liverpool

Nottingham Forest 4-1 Burnley

Continue reading...