Key events
Mike Ashley, an owner so bad he made the Saudi PIF seem like an attractive proposition, is in the running to buy Sheffield Wednesday. According to the latest from Matt Hughes, American billionaire John McEvoy, who holds minority stakes in the National Hockey League team Nashville Predators and Major League Baseball’s Colorado Rockies, is an interested party, while there has also been contact from at least one British and one other American group. Does anyone want to Ashley back in football?
Thank you below the line pedants for pointing out that the first round began on Friday. I stand corrected. This is a good shout for an upset, any other fixtures look promising?
Good luck to the non league teams in the Cup.
South Shields going great in the league so could be an upset
This is interesting from Hibernica, although I would say both Celtic and Rangers are stuck in a bit of a downward spiral in terms of player recruitment. With such a big financial lead over the other clubs in the Scottish Premiership, neither really ever sign plyers that allow them to consistently compete in Europe these days. It is quite telling that in one window Hearts have put together a team that is challenging the Old Firm domestically.
It’s accurate enough to suggest that Celtic and Rangers are both in crisis at the same time but there’s a world of difference between the two crises.
Celtic’s manager has walked out after the board failed to invest in enough new playing staff to build on last season’s achievement of getting out of the Champions League group phase.
Rangers are a club trying to emerge from a decade and a half of permanent crisis, has a penchant for needlessly sacking managers who are doing ok, and now isn’t ever in a position to attract the manager it wants.
Celtic’s crisis is one of temporary stagnation. But Rangers’ crisis is centred on the undeniable fact that the club is a complete shambles.
Personally, I find Earps’ take on her retirement quite understandable. All elite sportspeople have to have a degree of arrogance that tells them they are better than the next person, so to be replaced by someone you view as not showing the same levels of professionalism must sting and at that point why hang around to be a backup? What are your thoughts? Let me know know via the link above or in the comments below…
Hannah Hampton was the focus of much of what came out of the first look at Earps’ autobiography but she responded well with a clean sheet in Chelsea’s 2-0 win over London City Lionesses. Afterwards Chelsea head coach Sonia Bompastor defended Hampton and criticised Earps for a lack of respect.
“I think Hannah is fine,” Bompastor said. “It’s tough because Hannah is an athlete but also a person and it is never nice to hear these comments. The only thing I want to say about Hannah is that, since I joined Chelsea, she has grown so much. She’s such a professional athlete and also a good person. We have a really good relationship together and I want to show her my support in this situation.”
Read Sophie Downey’s full report from Stamford Bridge:
The Guardian is serialising Mary Earps autobiography ‘All In’ and after yesterday’s explosive passage about the former England No1’s retirement from international football, here she lifts the lid on when she successfully pushed Nike to change their policy on the sale of women’s replica goalkeeper kits after the 2022 World Cup:
The press conference where I’d called out Nike for failing to put on sale replica Lionesses goalkeeper shirts had exploded, triggering headlines and thought pieces and interview requests from news publishers and broadcasters the world over. It had gone far beyond the loyal group of women’s football reporters in the UK, and far beyond sports pages, into outlets covering news, business and women’s issues.
There was even a public petition, started by a young girl called Emmy, with more than 130,000 signatures calling on Nike to do better, which was incredibly touching.
Nike issued a public response saying it was working towards solutions for future tournaments, and I replied on Instagram with the first thing I’d said about it since the tournament, asking: “Is this your version of an apology/taking accountability/ a powerful statement of intent?”
It was picked up on by the papers all over again, another round of stories, and fans were rallying in a battle that was about goalkeeping but, at its heart, was about representation and equality, something women were fighting for in their own lives and arenas every single day. I had been unafraid and unapologetic in using my voice, and I’d backed it up with performances that demanded visibility too. It resonated.
I’d like to hear from Celtic or Rangers fans ahead of today’s game. I might be wrong here but it feels quite rare that both Old Firm clubs are having a bit of a crisis at the same time. Is that true? And will the result of today’s game change any of that perception? Get in touch via the email in the link above or below the line in the comments.
Ewan Murray
Would Celtic gamble on O’Neill if idol brings success against oldest rivals?
It feels unwise to be fooled by Martin O’Neill’s self-deprecation. The 73-year-old remains publicly steadfast that his second stint in charge of Celtic will be short term. “I think my remit was that they would be looking for somebody [else] pretty quickly,” he said on Friday. “I don’t think this is a renaissance. I just think this is a fill-in.”
Shock is still reverberating around Celtic Park, not so much about Monday’s resignation of Brendan Rodgers but the follow-up savaging of the former manager by the main shareholder, Dermot Desmond.
O’Neill is unwilling to speculate upon the ‘what if’. It is undeniable, though, that if he guides Celtic to a League Cup semi-final win against Rangers on Sunday there will be a swell of support for affording him a longer spell in office. “The only people who would be saying that is my two daughters,” said O’Neill. This is incorrect, which he will know only too well. O’Neill masks his intellect well when he chooses to.
Read Ewan Murray’s preview of today’s game at Hampden Park here:
The first round of the FA Cup began yesterday…
The substitute Regan Linney hit a sensational hat-trick as the National League side Carlisle stunned Reading of League One with a remarkable 3-2 extra-time win in the FA Cup first round. Linney struck twice in second-half added time to force an additional period after Lewis Wing and Mark O’Mahony put the hosts in control before completing his treble – and the comeback – in the 94th minute.
Fellow fifth-tier club Gateshead upset the League One high fliers AFC Wimbledon with a 2-0 away victory. Goals either side of half-time from Kain Adom and Fenton John made the difference against the Dons, who sit sixth in the third tier.
Full roundup here:
Elsewhere in the Premier League…
Sean Dyche argued football’s lawmakers should consider expanding the reach of the video assistant referee system after Nottingham Forest conceded from a controversial corner for the second successive match. His side came close to winning, but Dyche was left angered after Manchester United scored the opener from a corner awarded by the assistant referee Akil Howson on the far side of the pitch. Ben Fisher saw Nottingham Forest’s 2-2 draw with Manchester United.
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The wait goes on and on for Vítor Pereira and Wolves. Not since 26 April – 14 games and 189 days to be precise – have the Portuguese manager and his team tasted victory in the Premier League. That never looked like changing on yet another afternoon this season when nothing seemed to go their way. From the moment Ryan Sessegnon put Fulham ahead in the ninth minute, there was little prospect of them not going on to end their run of four straight defeats – and even less when Emmanuel Agbadou was sent off at the end of the first half. Read the rest of Ed Aarons report from Fulham’s 3-0 win over Wolves.
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On the south coast, Daniel Farke’s Leeds team were full of effort but bereft of the class Brighton have collected from across the globe. Farke’s initial plan lacked sufficient sophistication to prosper. They failed to properly unsettle Fabian Hürzeler’s team, who can be a whirl of inconsistency. In the first half Brighton hit creative heights then descended to customary flat spots. “There’s no sugar-coating,” said Farke. “They created far more.”
“We lost a bit of control but in the second half got it back,” said Hürzeler, delighted his team had kept a Premier League opponent from scoring for the first time this season. “It’s really about getting consistency into our results.” John Brewin was at the Amex to see Diego Gómez score twice in Brighton’s 3-0 win over Leeds.
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Jean-Philippe Mateta’s eighth goal of the season set Crystal Palace on course for a return to winning ways in the Premier League. Mateta’s opener on the half-hour was added to by an own goal from the Brentford captain, Nathan Collins, early in the second half as the Eagles backed up their win at Liverpool in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday with their first victory in four league games.
Will Unwin
Gyökeres and Rice on target as Arsenal sweep Burnley aside
Arsenal set pieces bring such a degree of organised chaos and unconventional thinking they could be nominated for the Turner Prize. Instead they are just making them favourites for the Premier League crown after extending their lead at the top. The Gunners have reached such a level of expertise, they even scored from a Burnley long throw.
Headers from Viktor Gyökeres and Declan Rice were the difference on a straightforward afternoon in Lancashire for Arsenal. The hosts failed to have a shot on target as Arsenal secured a seventh win in a row without conceding in all competitions, a statistic that will strike fear into the heart of their rivals.
“It’s a really tough place to come, they’d lost once in 18 months [at Turf Moor] against Liverpool in the last kick of the game by a penalty,” Mikel Arteta said. “We started the game exceptionally well. I think the first half is one of the best that we’ve played; scored two goals, generated another two or three big chances and conceded nothing.”
“Set piece again, olé olé,” was the chant ringing out from the away end after a tough start against a high-energy Burnley side. Rice swung the corner to the back post from where Gabriel Magalhães knocked the ball back to the centre of the goal and Gyökeres, who would have to go off injured at half-time, nodded in from a yard for Arsenal’s 12th set-piece goal in the Premier League this season.
Read Will Unwin’s full report from Turf Moor here:
Barney Ronay
Tottenham’s confused mess of a team exposed by Chelsea’s crash tackle king
Sitting through this tightly stitched but still oddly shapeless game of football, you kept thinking: what does this remind me of? The trapped energy, the collisions. The sense of something always but never really happening.
Oh yes. Watching the full 90 minutes of Chelsea’s narrow but still comfortable 1-0 defeat of Tottenham was like staring at one of those hypnotic drunken city centre brawls that appear on social media from time to time, where nothing ever really seems to start or stop, where the whole thing is just a kind of tortured flailing, but one that must also be pored over endlessly in the comments.
A man in a red hoodie is doing air kung fu kicks. Haymakers are being thrown at no one in particular. Someone falls through a fire door. Yellow-jacketed man tries to break it up, wanders off, comes back waving a bin lid. It is undeniably mesmerising. Energy of some kind is definitely being expended. But you can’t help thinking if only someone could actually land a blow, just one, they could put the whole thing to bed pretty quickly.
It was fitting it should be Moisés Caicedo who provided that moment of incision at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Not just because he was the best player on the pitch, but because this was also a game that might have been designed just to showcase his own extreme skillset, the king of broken play, the Maradona of the crash tackle.
It was also fitting the goal was made by counterpressing, the only effective creative element on the pitch. And fitting in a poor Spurs performance that it should be Xavi Simons who made the vital mistake. Simons is a good passer, but was basically chased, harried and generally beaten up during his time on the pitch. There are games, styles, formations that will suit the very specific talents of Simons. Spurs offered none of those things here.
Read Barney Ronay’s analysis of the action at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium here:
Slot hails ‘special’ Salah for reaching 250 goal club milestone as Liverpool beat Villa
Liverpool managed to ease the pressure on head coach Arne Slot by returning to what they know, mostly the side that waltzed to the title last season, and beat Aston Villa at Anfield. Mohamed Salah scored his 250th Liverpool goal in the 2-0 win.
Afterwards Slot hailed his “unbelievable” forward, who had opened the scoring in a deserved defeat of Unai Emery’s in-form team after a calamitous error by the World Cup-winning goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez. Salah’s strike capped a vastly improved performance from the Egypt international.
“It’s huge,” Slot said of Salah’s latest Liverpool milestone. “It is almost unbelievable if you score 250 goals, let alone 250 goals for one club. You don’t see that much in football any more. Apart from the goal he had a very good performance. When we had to play long, we mainly played to him and he held the ball and the team could come to him. What I liked was that he also helped the team defensively as well. After the first goal he was helping Virgil [van Dijk] around the halfway line. I liked his performance tonight. For him to score is not special but 250 is special.”
Read Andy Hunter’s match report from Anfield here:
Preamble
Good morning Guardian readers and welcome to the latest edition of Matchday live! We’ve got two Premier Leaugue fixtures to loook ahead to this afternoon, as well as the second Old Firm derby this season – a Scottish League Cup semi-final no less – and, before all of that, four matches in the WSL.
Yesterday was a bit of a monster in the English top-flight, so before we get stuck into today’s games let’s take a look back at yesterday’s headlines…
