Football (Soccer) News
Ipswich bid farewell to their Premier League status after just one year back in the top flight with defeat against West Ham in the final game of the season at Portman Road.
Town gifted the first goal to James Ward-Prowse just before the half-time break following a dreadful back-pass from the captain Sam Morsy.
Continue reading...Levi Colwill’s goal secured Champions League football for Chelsea next season, and sent Nottingham Forest in the direction of the Conference League
4 min: Gibbs-White barges his way down the inside-left channel … but James makes up ground and barges him off the ball. Elanga picks up the loose ball and tries to keep things going but Cucurella gets in the road and puts a stop to his gallop.
2 min: Chelsea are on the front foot quickly, though, and Palmer wins a corner down the left. It’s played short before being swung in, and it causes no danger to the hosts. What an atmosphere, though!
Continue reading...Bournemouth arrested their end-of-season slump to beat Leicester 2-0 on the final day and ensure a top-half finish. Antoine Semenyo struck twice to clinch victory on what was otherwise a fairly forgettable afternoon.
This is Bournemouth’s best-ever Premier League season, but somehow it has not felt like it lately. As recently as the end of February, they were fifth in the league, eyes firmly fixed on the Champions League places.
Continue reading...For quite a while the excellence of Everton’s Jordan Pickford and Carlos Alcaraz threatened to derail Newcastle’s Champions League ambitions.
Ultimately Aston Villa’s defeat at Manchester United enabled Eddie Howe’s team to stumble into European’s showpiece competition on goal difference but, as confirmation of the result from Old Trafford finally arrived and the home players broke into an almost obligatory bout of linking arms and bouncing on the spot they looked almost sheepish.
Continue reading...On 73 minutes a moment that Aston Villa will argue for a long time cost them the bumper prize of Champions League football next season and its lucrative cash injection of millions.
A weak Harry Maguire header had Altay Bayindir scrambling to collect. As he did, Morgan Rogers prodded the ball from his clutches – the goalkeeper did not have it under control – and the forward found the empty net.
Continue reading...Six of Sunday’s 10 games potentially have something riding on them – testament to the English elite’s enduring rude health
In a perfect world, what would the final day of the Premier League season look like? You’d have two sides going for the title – perhaps three or even four, all playing teams of similar standard and motivation. You’d have maybe six teams contesting the three relegation slots, possibly playing each other, and also a skirmish for European qualification.
Ideally all 10 games would mean something and there should be times over the course of the afternoon when each side have the set of results they need to achieve their aims. And there should definitely be a moment when it becomes apparent that a harassed television presenter has forgotten or overlooked a goal so viewers can mutter furiously at the screen: “For heavens’ sake, that puts Brentford in ninth.”
Continue reading...Tom Watson’s last kick as a Sunderland player was a dramatic injury-time winner that secured promotion to the Premier League
For far too long playoffs have felt impossibly high altitude for a Sheffield United side who have never won promotion this way, losing four finals. Wilder has addressed theproblem by reminding his players that the Wembley air is really not all that thin and maintaining that history is bunk.
His hopes of avoiding another demoralising repetition of the past should be enhanced by Gustavo Hamer’s presence. Two years ago the Brazil-born attacking midfielder scored for Coventry against Luton at Wembley and, as the Championship player of the season, he possesses the confidence and class to alter the Blades’ playoff story.
What’s trigonometry got to do with it?
During Le Bris’s teenage years in the western Breton village of Pont-l’Abbé, he devoted his spare time to completing an in-depth analysis of Arsène Wenger’s tactics as Monaco’s manager. As an adult, he spent holidays touring clubs across Spain and England – Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton and Leeds included – to watch their coaches. “He’s not someone who shouts at you,” the Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor says, “but he makes you understand things really, really thoroughly.” The winger Patrick Roberts agrees. “He’s efficient,” he says. “He’s brought us new ideas and he’s capable of changing our play depending on the opponent. He’s modern.”
Continue reading...Few expected the team to challenge this season but the club held off Inter to spark Neapolitan fireworks that could put Mount Vesuvius to shame
Antonio Conte had asked a city not to get ahead of itself, not to celebrate this Serie A title before its team earned it. “I don’t want to see flags here and there with numbers on,” he said after the draw with Parma in the penultimate round. Everybody knew what he meant: Napoli were in touching distance of their fourth scudetto but, for a superstitious manager, now was not the moment to say it out loud.
Supporters held off for as long as they could. Not until the final moments of Napoli’s 2-0 win over Cagliari on Friday did the giant white sheet come cascading down the stands of the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona with an enormous black “4” in the middle. Green and red flares were set off either side to create the colours of the Italian flag. The same that appear on a scudetto badge.
Continue reading...Our fans network reviews the season with one game to play: the highs, the lows and the moments that made them smile
It’s been yet another “always the bridesmaid, never the bride” season. There were times it felt we were destined for glory, but injuries and red cards cost us. We still had jaw-dropping moments, though, especially in a phenomenal Champions League campaign. As they say, it’s the hope that kills, but even this jaded old lag had begun to believe I’d finally tick that big-eared prize off my bucket list. Still, 8/10.
Bernard Azulay onlinegooner.com; @GoonerN5
Jonathan Pritchard
Continue reading...Scott McTominay and Romelu Lukaku scored the goals against Cagliari that claimed a second title in three years
Caledonia’s Simon McMahon gets in touch: “Gilmour and McTominay starting for Napoli and on the verge of winning Serie A is just insane, John. Really hope they do it, got the pizza and beers in, COME ON NAPOLI!!!”
Naples is getting game ready, too. Mathías Olivera is being given a penant for his 100th game. The sound of Live Is Life can be heard at the Diego Armando Maradona.
Continue reading...Napoli win league by point from Inter, who beat Como
McTominay also named Serie A player of the season
A spectacular scissor kick from Scott McTominay set Napoli on their way to a 2-0 win over Cagliari that sealed the Serie A title for Antonio Conte’s side in their final league game of the season.
Napoli went into the match leading the Italian table by just one point from Inter, who kicked off at the same time on Friday night away to Como. When Stefan de Vrij put Inter ahead via a corner after 20 minutes, they leapfrogged Napoli in the live standings, but the goal from the former Manchester United midfielder McTominay in the 42nd minute, acrobatically converting Matteo Politano’s cross, eased nerves in Naples.
Continue reading...Blades have come up short in their four previous attempts to gain promotion via an end-of-season showpiece final
When the half-time whistle blows at Wembley on Saturday afternoon, Tom Lockyer will temporarily replace Sheffield United and Sunderland as the centre of attention.
It is two years since Lockyer collapsed on England’s most famous pitch after experiencing atrial fibrillation during Luton’s Championship playoff final win against Coventry and almost 18 months since he had a cardiac arrest and almost died while playing for the club at Bournemouth.
Continue reading...The latest omission of Jack Grealish isn’t a surprise. Grealish is a bit-part player at Manchester City these days and wasn’t used in last weekend’s FA Cup final defeat by Crystal Palace. The match winner in that game, Eberechi Eze, is included. The Palace duo of Marc Guéhi and Adam Wharton miss out, presumably due to injury (although it should be said Tuchel hasn’t seemed entirely convinced by Guéhi).
Tuchel has not been able to name Marcus Rashford because of injury; West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen misses out after failing to take his opportunity last time. Newcastle’s Dan Burn gets another go.
Continue reading...Liverpool’s penalty shootout hero in the 2005 Champions League final against Milan reflects on the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’ and how it changed his life
Twenty years on from that double save, those spaghetti legs and the miracle of Liverpool’s fifth European Cup triumph and Turkey has not lost the capacity to make a champion out of Jerzy Dudek. “I won the Turkish Open golf last week and it reminded me a bit of Istanbul,” the former Liverpool goalkeeper says. “It is my favourite place, my lucky place, and it stays with me all the time. If I go on holiday to Turkey I always go with a big smile.”
Sunday promises to have the same effect on everyone associated with Liverpool. The presentation of the Premier League trophy to Arne Slot’s champions at Anfield coincides with the 20th anniversary of the “Miracle of Istanbul”, when Liverpool overcame a 3-0 half-time deficit to defeat Milan on penalties in the Champions League final. Not that any Liverpool fan needs reminding of the details. The sights and sounds of Ataturk Stadium remain as vivid to Dudek now as they were on 25 May, 2005.
Continue reading...Chelsea braced for City Ground cauldron, Rodri back on the scene and party vibes all round at Anfield
• Golden Boot: how the leading scorers stand
Bournemouth’s hopes of European football were vanquished after defeat to Manchester City on Tuesday but the Cherries, 11th on 53 points, could still achieve ninth spot and match their best finish in the Premier League (under Eddie Howe in 2016-17, although that was achieved with only 46 points). A home game against relegated Leicester looks to offer the perfect opportunity but the closing stretch has been tough for Andoni Iraola’s side, with the past 12 league games producing only two victories. Remarkably, a three-game league form table puts Leicester in fourth after home wins over Southampton and Ipswich either side of a 2-2 draw at Nottingham Forest. Perhaps this won’t be the walkover most are expecting, and there could be a wistful feeling in the air at the Vitality on Sunday afternoon. No one can deny it has been a strong season but what a party it might have been. With Dean Huijsen off to Real Madrid and Milos Kerkez linked heavily with the champions, Liverpool, how many of the goodbyes on the traditional end-of-season lap of honour will be permanent? David Tindall
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