Key events
Eli Junior Kroupi for the France World Cup squad? The Bournemouth teenager is racking up numbers this season that put him on a par with Erling Haaland and Lamine Yamal, so Ben Fisher spoke to a former Lorient teammate of the forward.
Röhl shrugs off Rangers exit rumours before Old Firm game
Danny Röhl says he will be staying at Rangers despite rumours linking him with an exit.
The Scottish Premiership title is slipping away from Rangers. With three fixtures remaining, they are seven points behind Hearts and four behind Celtic ahead of the Old Firm derby on Sunday, with Bundesliga side Wolfsburg reportedly eyeing a swoop for Röhl.
Asked if he felt sure he would still be Rangers manager next season, the former Sheffield Wednesday boss said: “From my side of course, 100 per cent.
“There’s a lot of rumours. I think I looked back last year with how many clubs I was linked, I could get maybe 20 jobs there in the newspaper.
“But my full focus is on Rangers. I think even in the last couple of days our conversations with the board, with the club, goes just in one direction, how we can win titles with the club in the future.
“I’m convinced I chose the club with the reason to bring back success, to win titles.
“A good process is not enough. We want to have titles and for this we have to change things. We set standards, but we have to increase the standards and if we do this, then we have a chance.”
“I feel that I’m in the right place with the right people with a lot of motivation, positive energy to bring this club not just to a one-hit wonder, back to a consistent club who can win titles in a row.”
Playoffs: What do we reckon then, are Southampton favourites for the Championship playoffs? They appear to have the momentum, which is hugely important. An all north-west final for the League One edition, Bolton versus Stockport, maybe? Bradford may have something to say about that. Another Mancunian team in Salford will be desperate to win the League Two playoffs, but they are perilously hard to predict with the likes of Grimsby and Chesterfield in great form.
As Challinor says … expected the unexpected. It’s the playoffs after all.
A bit of a shameless plug for my own article here: an interview with Stockport County boss Dave Challinor who boasts a frankly ridiculous record of finishing in at least a playoff spot in all 15 full seasons with the clubs he’s managed.
“The playoffs can bring all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff. When you’ve not been involved in them before that can be a shock. Everything is on the line here. There are so many things that go on, I think you have to expect the unexpected.”
Stockport face Stevenage in the League One playoff semi-finals, with the first leg on Saturday.
With Unai Emery eyeing an incredible fifth Europa League triumph (he won three with Sevilla, one with Villarreal) an email has dropped from Krishnamoorthy:
The Europa League can save a lot of carbon footprint if they scrap the whole tournament and award the trophy to the team managed by Unai Emery!
And in the weekend games, Brentford may settle the title race even before Arsenal gets to the field on Sunday.
I agree Aston Villa are massive favourites to beat Freiburg in the Europa League final, although Brentford snatching points off Manchester City on Saturday seems less likely.
Max Rushden’s latest column is worth a few minutes of your time. On walking over club crests and the many dubious reasons football and footballers can cry controversy.
Is there anybody out there who actually thinks it’s disrespectful to walk over a massive badge that’s been placed on the floor?
While we’re on the subject of Manchester United, it’s worth delving into Michael Carrick’s comments about Sunderland from yesterday’s press conference, recalling United’s 1-0 win at Sunderland in May 2012 – which is more widely remembered as the day Sergio Aguero dramatically won the league for Manchester City from under United noses.
Sunderland fans were seen celebrating and doing the ‘Poznan’ celebration that City famously adopted once the news of Aguero’s goal versus QPR filtered through.
“I can remember that. I have not forgotten it. I just remember the noise,” said Carrick, who was a United player that day.
There was sarcasm in the way they were singing. It wasn’t over but we thought we had done the job. Then the Sunderland fans got smart about it and started having a pop, which exploded into laughter because we had lost the league.
“Sir Alex [Ferguson] was down. He was annoyed at the added time and the sarcasm. You knew he wouldn’t forget. He could turn that into propaganda for next time. ‘Remember this day. Remember Sunderland enjoyed the moment’.”
Topper has emailed in re the current Manchester United status quo:
Could you just check. There seems to be no drama at Old Trafford currently and I’m a bit concerned. Just a weekend paying football with nothing riding on the result #boringunited
Don’t forget third place and that juicy prize money, Topper! If United beat Sunderland and Liverpool/Aston Villa dropped points, they’ll be confirmed as the third best team in the league this season.
Thank you Yara. Let’s start with some co-efficient housekeeping …
La Liga has clinched a bonus fifth spot in the Champions League next season, thanks to Rayo Vallecano’s win against Strasbourg in the Conference League semi-finals last night. Vallecano have set up a showdown with Crystal Palace, of course, but their progress is also good news for Real Betis, who are on course to finish fifth in the Spanish top tier.
England is the other country whose league get an extra Champions League spot, largely due to the fact three Premier League sides (Arsenal, Aston Villa and Palace) have made the European finals.
That is all from me for now. Dominic Booth is here to steer you through the afternoon.
Premier League title race: Arsenal have the advantage in the Premier League title race but will they hold off Manchester City’s challenge? And which are the main games that will decide it all? WhoScored have laid it all out.
Newcastle: More from Howe on the race to qualify for Europe. Newcastle currently sit in 13th with 45 points.
We are looking at it this way which is to try and win our last three games. The lads are focused and have trained well. It’s been strong, I said it was strong last week and I had a similar feel this week. While there is an opportunity, we will try and grab it.
And on Woltemade’s lack of starting minutes:
Nick is fine. That is a natural reaction; if you look at any player who doesn’t come on the pitch, there will be a sense of disappointment. Everyone wants to play. Nick has been really good and has been training well, team training has been good for him.
The media will no doubt will blow everything up but he is training well and is really committed. We really value him and want him to do well. I have the difficult job of picking a team every week and there are disappointed players.
Newcastle: Eddie Howe has once again been asked about Anthony Gordon’s future at the club. The 25-year-old, who has struggled this season, has been linked with a move to Bayern Munich. Here is what his manager had to say:
It is difficult for me to comment on individual players and timescales. It is an area that is not my forte. All I am looking to do is trying to finish this season with this squad in a strong way. There is no point looking too far into the future.
The summer transfer window is difficult to predict on any level. We have three big games to play. I will do what is right for the team and best for the football club [when selecting the team]. [Gordon is still committed], he wouldn’t be in the squad if that wasn’t the case. I judge that on my relationship with the player and how I see them train.
Howe also gave updates on Lewis Miley and Tino Livramento’s fitness:
It was an innocuous moment in training on Tuesday. No one was around [Miley] and he slipped. He went down and thought it was a twist and nothing too serious. But he was unable to continue and pretty early we became aware it was more serious than we thought. It is the fragile nature of a professional football and he faces a few months out but we hope he will be back for pre-season. It is a real blow for us and also for Lewy.
It has been a huge frustration for him, he has had some unfortunate moments but this was a slip. We have tried to look after him, we are aware of his age. It is part of the job that you get these moments. Athletically, he is outstanding, and his body is strong but he is still growing. Our plan would be that he is in and around training in pre-season. The surgery went really well and everything is looking in a good place.
Tino is doing well. He is improving; he is back running and on the grass but I don’t think he will be back this season.
We could push him for the Fulham game but that would be silly on his behalf. Let’s let him recover and get a good summer behind him.
Premier League: The press conferences from the Premier League managers are coming thick and fast. Before we get to those, here is what can be decided this weekend.
-
European qualification: With Manchester United joining Arsenal and Manchester City in securing Champions League football next season after beating Liverpool last weekend, there are just two guaranteed spots left in Europe’s top-tier club competition. Liverpool and Aston Villa currently sit fourth and fifth respectively, with the Arne Slot’s side hosting Chelsea on Saturday and Villa travelling to Burnley on Sunday. Both sides will confirm Champions League qualification if they win and sixth-placed Bournemouth drop points away to Fulham on Saturday. A draw will also be enough for Liverpool and Villa if Bournemouth lose. However, sixth place could yet earn Champions League qualification. That will be the case if Villa finish fifth in the Premier League and go on to win the Europa League.
-
Relegation: Leeds and Forest both moved a step closer to securing their Premier League status thanks to 3-1 wins last week, beating Burnley at home and Chelsea away respectively. Victory for Leeds at Tottenham on Monday will guarantee their top-flight status for next season regardless of results elsewhere – though they will be safe before a ball has been kicked in north London if West Ham lose at home to Arsenal on Sunday. If West Ham draw with Arsenal, Leeds will be safe with a draw against Spurs. Forest will also be safe if they win at home against Newcastle on Sunday and West Ham fail to do so later in the day against Arsenal. A draw will be enough for Forest if Arsenal go on to beat West Ham.
El Clásico: Clear skies and sunny days for Barcelona on the other hand. With the sting of Champions League disappointment fading but not forgotten, Barcelona are aiming to clinch back-to-back La Liga titles on Sunday when they host bitter rivals Real Madrid.
Leading by 11 points, Hansi Flick’s side only need a draw in el clásico to be crowned champions again, although a victory against a team in crisis would keep them on course to make history – and celebrate in style.
If Barcelona win their last four league games this season, starting with the battle against Alvaro Arbeloa’s fracturing Madrid, they will match the all-time league record of 100 points. That was first achieved by José Mourinho’s Real Madrid in 2011-12 and followed the season after by Tito Vilanova’s Barcelona. Barcelona’s 29 wins so far this season are the most of any side at this point, and if they win their last four games they will break the record of 32 victories in a season, shared by the Mourinho and Vilanova sides.
Should Barcelona beat Madrid and also Real Betis the following weekend, they will become the first team to win all their home matches in a 38-game La Liga season.
However, they are without Lamine Yamal, who is out for the next few weeks with a hamstring injury. The Brazilian winger Raphinha returned to the bench last weekend after injury but did not appear in the win at Osasuna which moved Barcelona to the brink of the title.
Only once before in clásico history has the title actually been decided by the result of the game, as could happen again this Sunday. Real Madrid won the first of their record 36 leagues by drawing 2-2 against Barcelona in the 1931-32 season to clinch the title.
El Clásico: Real Madrid’s Fede Valverde was taken to hospital to have stitches after a second confrontation with teammate Aurélien Tchouaméni in two days, as the club’s collapse into chaos continues.
Players held an emergency meeting and Real have opened disciplinary proceedings after a physical fight, with blood being spilled and Valverde being taken for treatment.
It is the latest episode in a catalogue of problems at the club; they will almost certainly end a second successive season without a trophy, Álvaro Arbeloa will not continue as coach, and the dressing room divide widens by the day. Real travel to Barcelona for the clásico on Sunday.
Valverde and Tchouaméni almost came to blows during an argument in training on Wednesday which continued into the dressing room, with teammates intervening to separate the pair as they pushed each other. Then, 24 hours later, the sports newspaper Marca revealed that on Thursday Tchouaméni and Valverde fought, resulting in Valverde falling and hitting his head, opening up a gash.
Valverde was taken to the medical department at Valdebebas and from there to the nearby Hospital Blua Sanitas Valdebebas, where he was given stitches. Cameras caught the 27-year-old’s car going back and forth from the training ground, although the Uruguay midfielder was not visible inside.
More from Sid Lowe below including Valverde’s statement and Real Madrid’s medical assessment on his injury.
Championship playoffs: Middlesbrough believe they caught a Southampton analyst hiding in the bushes and allegedly recording their training session on Thursday morning, in a remarkable repeat of the 2019 Marcelo Bielsa “spygate” affair.
Boro have reported the incident to the English Football League as spying on opposition training is in breach of their regulations. The EFL is investigating the alleged misconduct and have requested Southampton’s observations regarding the matter.
The individual, thought to be part of Tonda Eckert’s backroom team, was spotted by a member of Middlesbrough staff at the beginning of their session at Rockliffe Park, 48 hours before their Championship playoff semi-final first leg.
Boro are aware of the details of the Southampton employee allegedly involved. It is thought the individual in question logged video and photographs on his phone, potentially focusing on Boro’s set pieces, but refused to identify himself after being confronted.
Read Ben Fisher’s full story below.
Championship playoffs: Four decades on from the birth of playoffs, Millwall, Hull City, Middlesbrough or Southampton are fighting to join Coventry and Ipswich in the top flight. Matt Furniss at Opta has crunched the numbers to see who is most likely to go up.
Football League: Forty years ago, the playoffs did not exist and fascinating archives reveal how a format that even one winning manager wanted abolished came to be.
Despite the complaints – and an initially indifferent reaction from the media – the end-of-season drama quickly took hold. In 1986-87, promoted Charlton had battled to stay in the First Division and were forced to fight for their lives again after finishing fourth-bottom.
Charlton beat Ipswich 2-1 on aggregate in the semi-final, then faced Leeds in a final that could not be separated over two legs, each winning 1-0 at home. The competition was proving popular, with crowds of about 30,000 packing Elland Road for both Leeds home games. A replay at Birmingham’s St Andrew’s followed – a playoff to decide the playoffs, if you will.
The score was level after 90 minutes and Charlton looked doomed when John Sheridan scored in extra time. But Shirtliff struck twice in four delirious minutes. It remains the only playoff final to go to a replay, after that idea was dropped.
On the journey home, the Charlton coach hurtled down the M6 until the players, starving, demanded to stop. They pulled into a service station and tucked into cheap fast food. “I’m thinking: ‘We’ve just managed to stay in the First Division and we’re all eating chips and god knows what in a services,’” Shirtliff, now 65, says, chuckling. “Every time I think about it, I think: ‘What would they be doing now?’ They’d probably be in five-star restaurants or in a hotel with their own chef cooking for them.”
Read more from Sam Cunningham below.
Europa Conference League: Crystal Palace followed Arsenal and Aston Villa to become the third English team to make a men’s European final this season. Here is Ed Aarons’ verdict from Selhurst Park.
There were ecstatic celebrations as Palace’s players completed a lap of honour in front of their adoring supporters who are still having to pinch themselves over the events of the past 12 months. Glasner may be set to leave after what will be the 60th game of a marathon season but whatever happens after this, he will always have a special place in the club’s history. One of the loudest cheers of the night came when the stadium announcer confirmed that Nottingham Forest – who controversially replaced Palace in the Europa League – had been thrashed 4-0 by Aston Villa in their semi-final.
The captain Dean Henderson, admitted that the sense of injustice has been driving the FA Cup winners. “It’s pretty incredible really to even get into a European competition with Crystal Palace, let alone reach the final,” he said. “We’ve got to deliver something special. We’ve got to get back what we deserve.”
Europa League: John McGinn has warned that the job is not done yet and that Villa are not ‘nearly men’ in Istanbul.
We didn’t want to leave these games with any regrets, and I think we’ve done ourselves massive justice. We’ve had low moments. It’s a demanding club to play for but what we’ve done in the last few years is exceptional. The margins are so slim. If we lost, we’re the nearly men.
When we go to Istanbul, we need to make sure we’re not the nearly men. I’m normally quite calm before games, but today I was nervous. Tonight was up with one of the best performances I’ve seen from a Villa team for a long time.
I wasn’t nervous in terms of the team turning up. We’ve turned up in big games, maybe just not in big semi-finals. The injuries Forest have had may have helped decide it, but we needed to capitalise – and we did. The club’s been through some massive lows, but such a massive group deserves success. Hopefully we’ll bring it.
Europa League: In the end, it was a rout, Aston Villa sailing into their first European final since 1982. There were fist pumps from Prince William high in the Trinity Road Stand after Emiliano Buendía’s penalty approaching the hour put Villa in command of the tie and then pure delirium as John McGinn buried two near-identical first-time finishes inside three minutes to kill the game.
In between serenading Unai Emery, who is hunting a record fifth Europa League title, and drinking in the celebrations, Villa supporters could think about booking flights to Istanbul, where Villa will face Freiburg in search of their first trophy since lifting the League Cup in 1996.
Villa had the “benefit of Buendía’s ice-cold mind,” wrote Will Unwin, who was at Villa Park to watch as the Argentinian kept his head as tempers raged around him.
Aston Villa settled sooner and an integral element of that was Buendía, a classy No 10 unfazed by swimming in a cauldron. He knows if he plays his own game, then good things will follow. Forest may have hoped to intimidate him but he was always eager to take the ball to feet, even with Elliot Anderson and others snapping at his heels.
Buendía encouraged the vociferous Villa fans to make more noise by throwing his arms up in the air during the first half, knowing the part they could play. It worked as the decibels grew, but creating the opener was a more successful method of testing the 129-year-old foundations. Receiving the ball on the edge of the box, Buendía weighed up his options and took the most difficult route, dazzling through two defenders before calmly slipping a pass to give Watkins the easiest of finishes.
Read the full analysis below.
Preamble
The 2025-26 season may be ticking towards its end but there is still a whole lot to be decided. Championship playoffs begin with Hull v Millwall tonight before Middlesbrough take on Southampton in tomorrow’s lunchtime kick-off. The latter may be extra spicy given Boro made a formal complaint to the EFL alleging a man they believe to be a Southampton member of staff was spying on their training session yesterday.
In the Premier League, Manchester City hope to bounce back from their draw at Everton against Brentford. Arsenal will be keen for their title rivals to slip up before they face West Ham, who are facing the drop, on Sunday. There is also Women’s FA Cup action with Liverpool taking on Brighton before Chelsea host the newly crowned WSL champions, Manchester City. Plus some big rivalries ignite with the Old Firm derby at Celtic Park and el clásico returns at Camp Nou but Barcelona will be the least of Madrid fans’ worries, with a teammate rift causing spilled blood in the dressing room. More on that later.
There was plenty to chew on last night too. Vibrant and victorious Villa demolished Nottingham Forest’s hopes of charging into the Europa League final and edging closer to ending a 30-year major trophy drought. They will face Freiburg in the final in Istanbul on 20 May.
In the Conference League, Oliver Glasner’s chances of bowing out at Crystal Palace with a second trophy in two years were substantially enhanced with a 5-2 aggregate semi-final win. The Europa League place denied them last year is now in sight, with Rayo Vallecano as their opponents in the final in Leipzig on 27 May.
So much reaction to get to, so much buildup to be across. To get you in the mood, here are our 10 Premier League things to look out for.
As always, if you have any thoughts, questions, predictions, complaints or anything else you want to share, then send them my way via email which you can find at the top of this blog. How do you expect your club to fare this weekend? And has the season gone as expected? I want to know.
Leave a Reply