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⚽ FA Cup fifth round news from the 12.15pm GMT kick-off
⚽ Live scores | Follow us on Bluesky | And email Billy

4 min: Big chance for Arsenal! They win it high up in the Mansfield half and Dowman is denied by Roberts’ legs.

2 min: McLaughlin runs down Madueke on the byline. Welcome to Mansfield, Noni. Tyler Roberts then does the same to Marli Salmon.

⚽ Updates from the qualifier kicking off at 12.30pm GMT
⚽ Live scores | Read Moving the Goalposts | Mail Emillia

Before kick-off, there is a minute’s applause to celebrate the life and legacy of Lynda Hale, who passed away recently.

Hale played and scored in England’s first-ever fixture.

• WSL side’s turnover rose by 25% in year of record investment

• Total wage bill was £3.1m while nine directors paid £4.2m

Liverpool directors earned more in pay than the combined salaries of all their Women’s Super League side’s 49 players and staff, latest accounts reveal.

Liverpool Women’s total operating budget climbed by 36% for the year ending 31 May 2025, when they finished seventh in the WSL and reached the Women’s FA Cup semi-finals.

Veteran striker who played in 2019 final brings experience to League One club in fifth round for first time in 30 years

There is no shortage of FA Cup pedigree at Port Vale. Emblazoned on plaques and walls around Vale Park are memories of their 1996 victory against Everton under the legendary manager John Rudge. That 2-1 victory, in a fourth-round replay having held the Cup holders at Goodison Park, was the last time Vale had reached the fifth round until Tuesday’s extra-time win over Bristol City. Now Sunderland await at Vale Park on Sunday – another chance to make history.

“It’s been 30 years since we’ve been to this stage – but it’s now about putting in a performance that can be memorable,” said their head coach, Jon Brady. “You want to put in performances they can go home talking about, and that they can be proud of. You want to see smiles on faces and people feeling really upbeat about the team. You want to create special memories that will live long, and the other night will live long in the players’ and fans’ memories.”

Playmaker has become peripheral as Manchester City chase quadruple and is no longer a shoo-in for the World Cup

With 76 minutes gone at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday night, Phil Foden was culpable for what might prove the title race’s defining moment. With Manchester City leading Nottingham Forest 2-1, Foden lost Elliot Anderson, who ran off him and curled home a 20-yard equaliser. Sixty seconds later, Pep Guardiola substituted his England playmaker.

As Morgan Gibbs-White’s first equaliser could also be traced back to a loose Foden touch, this was a miserable evening for him: City managed only a draw, and as Arsenal won at Brighton, the title race tilted the Gunners’ way.

In an extract from his book, Philippe Auclair reveals the influence of mother, Fayza, and prominent women on the Mbappé image and brand

The Mbappés did their utmost to keep outsiders at arm’s length from the outset. The agents – dozens of them – who approached them to become Kylian’s representatives ever since the eight-year-old was making fun of defenders twice his size with Bondy were rebuffed. The financial advisers who offered to broker sponsorship deals met with the same response: father Wilfrid would take care of his son’s sporting career, mother Fayza of all the rest, with Kylian having the final word in any decision involving his future, be it on or off the field; and so it has remained to this day. Kylian does not have a Fifa-registered agent. Nobody but the closest members of his family gets a cut from the deals he signs with clubs or commercial partners. This is not to say that nobody else is involved in the projet.

Luís Campos, sporting adviser for the clubs owned by Qatar Sports Investments after fulfilling a similar role for Lille and Monaco, remains a trusted confidant, as he’s been since playing a central role in smoothing the difficulties the young Kylian encountered at Monaco. Former L’Équipe journalist Bilel Ghazi, who, though unlicensed by Fifa, has been working with players like Rayan Cherki (whom Kylian’s mother Fayza also represented for a short while), has provided media guidance to the Mbappés. Neither Campos nor Ghazi are part of the inner circle, however.

Youthful manager on his colourful journey as a coach from Germany and Sunday’s FA Cup fifth round trip to Fulham

As a 19-year-old studying at a sports university in Cologne, Tonda Eckert jumped at the chance to work for Germany as an analyst at Euro 2012. “It was nice, eh? Take somebody who doesn’t understand anything about the game and put them in,” says the now Southampton head coach, smiling as he recalls being thrust into an elite environment. He entered the same sphere as Joachim Löw, Hansi Flick and a team of greats: Miroslav Klose, Philipp Lahm, Toni Kroos, Manuel Neuer, the list goes on.

For the 2014 World Cup, Eckert was tasked with preparing a dossier on Argentina, who Germany overcame in the final. “The celebrations in Berlin were amazing, at the Fanmeile,” he says of the scenes at the fan zone by Brandenburg Gate. In the semi-finals, Germany humiliated the hosts Brazil, triumphing 7-1 in Belo Horizonte. “You know what Joachim Löw said at half-time? That he wouldn’t let anyone play in the final if they didn’t finish the second half with a sense of humility, because he knew how much it meant to Brazil, in Brazil.”

This time around, Liverpool made no mistake at Molineux. They stayed on the road to Wembley, thanks to two players signed in 2017, beloved veterans with uncertain futures. Andy Robertson and Mohamed Salah scored the goals to ease the pain of Tuesday’s Premier League defeat before Curtis Jones’s strike completed a night of relative comfort. Wolves crashed back to the reality of eight remaining top-flight matches before the drop. Their goal from Hwang Hee-chan came far too late.

While Arne Slot expresses disappointment at the Premier League’s entertainment levels, a verdict hostage to fortune on Tuesday, his starting selection suggested an FA Cup exit would not be countenanced. Winning the trophy will not offer full job security but losing twice at the top flight’s bottom club in three days, a potentially telling blow, was avoided.

• Top flight directors discuss holding in penalty area

• Set pieces account for 27.1% of Premier League goals

The Premier League’s sporting directors have held talks about the ubiquity of set-piece goals and holding in the penalty area, amid concerns these trends are damaging the spectacle.

Liverpool’s head coach, Arne Slot, said this week that his “football heart doesn’t like it”, when asked about the growing importance of set pieces, which have been responsible for 27.1% of Premier League goals this season, excluding penalties.

In refusing to sing the national anthem these athletes have placed themselves in grave danger while Gianni Infantino sides with the American war machine

A small but telling detail from a vast and baffling chain of events. You probably saw the footage of Donald Trump’s declaration of war on Iran two weeks ago, a piece of history played out in real time, a moment where the inevitable violent deaths of thousands of people were in effect announced.

In the video Trump is shown propped up at his plinth, using that sing-song intonation he employs to appear cod-statesmanlike, faux-grave, but sounding instead like a semi-sentient robot vacuum cleaner in the seconds before it runs out of battery life. To the great people of Iran. America is backing you. Don’t go outside. It’s very dangerous out there. We will for the foreseeable future be bombing you to freedom.

New play at the Crucible highlights early struggles and shows the dissolving division between sport and the performing arts

The Crucible Theatre is best known for hosting snooker, but it claims a place in football history too. On its outer wall, a blue plaque marks the site where the Sheffield Rules of the game were agreed in 1858, back when it was the Adelphi hotel. So it is a fitting spot to be premiering a new play this month about the establishment – and subsequent dismantling – of women’s football in the early 20th century.

Football fans and theatregoers may not have always felt like the obvious overlap in a Venn diagram, but the past decade has been a banner one for the beautiful game on stage. We have had a farce about the 2018 World Cup bid (Three Lions), a Royal Court drama about homophobia (The Pass), a Pulitzer Prize-nominated exploration of teenage girlhood (The Wolves) and even a 16th-century folk horror (The Bounds). Plus Dear England, the still-touring smash hit that tells the story of Gareth Southgate’s tenure as manager of the national men’s team.

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• Supporter groups’ pleas for price freezes ignored

• Both clubs insist hikes needed to compete on pitch

Manchester United and Newcastle have increased season-ticket prices by 5% for 2026-27. While both clubs insist the rises are necessary to achieve success on the pitch, their respective supporter groups have strongly criticised the above-inflation hikes.

Season tickets at Old Trafford had previously been frozen for 11 consecutive campaigns, but this is now the fourth successive year they have been increased. The club said: “We have a clear objective to return Manchester United to the top of domestic and European football. We want to keep investing in the team and improving our facilities so fans get the best possible experience. We also need to make sure the club stays financially sustainable taking into account inflation and rising costs.

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The last time the USA hosted the World Cup, drinks breaks – or the lack thereof – became a scorching bone of contention. Upset at having to stand on the touchline listening to the pasty skin of Tommy Coyne, Steve Staunton and assorted other Irish players audibly crackle in 40-degree heat, Big Jack Charlton went to war with Fifa over their refusal to sanction official breaks in play so that his famously thirsty footballers could take on liquids. The rules from on high decreed that players near the dugout could adjourn to the sideline for refreshments while play continued. However, since bottles were not allowed on the pitch, those further away had to try catching flimsy funfair-style plastic bags of water – sans goldfish – thrown from the touchline. Anyone who happened to be out of chucking range just had to flirt with heat stroke for the good of the tournament.

Spurs, and in particular, Thursday’s first half ‘performance’, if that’s the right word, are going to single-handedly put Football Daily and every single professional comedian (and Jack Whitehall) out of business, for good. There’s no competing with that” – Noble Francis.

In the early days of my career I had many brilliant ideas at the workplace but hardly any progress or improvement to the bottom line. My boss told me: ‘You are on the right track but the train is not moving.’ Same with Igor Tudor” – Krishnamoorthy V.

If Tudor thinks his ‘boat’ is heading in the right direction, then presumably he is a big Titanic fan. Looking ahead, some real challenges will be thrown up should the Good Ship Spurs go down. Are, for example, Stoke fans really going to be up for a visit to the cheese room on a cold, rainy Tuesday night?” – Paul Taverner.

• Players sing and salute anthem before Asian Cup game

• Refugee Council: ‘Team members at risk if they return’

The Australian government has been urged to allow the Iran women’s national team players to remain in Australia after a state-aligned conservative commentator in Iran described them as “wartime traitors” and said they must be “dealt with more severely”.

The Iran players are currently competing in the Women’s Asian Cup, and lost 4-0 to the Matildas on the Gold Coast in their second group-stage match on Thursday.

• All World Cup matches to break after 22 minutes of each half

• Adverts can be either normal breaks or split-screen version

ITV is in talks with its commercial partners about showing adverts during the mid-half drinks stoppages that will take place in every match at this summer’s World Cup.

Global broadcasters have been briefed on Fifa’s stipulations for the three-minute hydration breaks, which will take place after 22 minutes of each half irrespective of the temperature.

• Forward says all that matters is they keep winning

• Saka unconcerned by lower goals and assist tally

Bukayo Saka says he is untroubled by the rising tide of criticism against Arsenal and wants to do one thing and one thing alone – win. The winger marked his 300th appearance for the club with the only goal in Wednesday’s 1-0 victory at Brighton, which moved Arsenal seven points clear of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League. City have a game in hand.

It was an emotional night at the Amex Stadium. Fabian Hürzeler had complained about Arsenal’s timewasting beforehand, the Brighton manager raged about it during the match – as did the home crowd – and he signed off with another blast, saying Arsenal had again taken advantage of the inability of referees to combat delaying tactics.

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Robyn Cowen is joined by Barry Glendenning, John Brewin and Jonathan Liew as Manchester City drop points against Nottingham Forest and Arsenal extend their lead at the top of the table to seven points.

On the podcast today: was this the night Arsenal won the title? An unconvincing victory at Brighton thanks to a deflected goal that should have been saved and dropped points for Manchester City at the Etihad see the Gunners go seven clear at the top.

Elsewhere: Michael Carrick is handed his first defeat as Manchester United coach on his return to Tyneside against 10-man Newcastle to shake up the race for Champions League football.

Plus: the rest of the midweek Premier League football, a look ahead to the FA Cup fifth round and your questions answered.

Thirty-four years on from Mickey Thomas’ winner against Arsenal, the Welsh club seek statement win over Chelsea

“It’s just surreal,” says the former Wrexham midfielder Mickey Thomas, scorer of arguably the club’s most famous goal. When he helped strike down Arsenal, the reigning English champions, in the FA Cup third round in 1992, he could not have expected 34 years later to be regularly rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s biggest stars, regaling them with the story of how he smashed a free‑kick past David Seaman.

In recent years, Wrexham have welcomed a glittering array of famous Hollywood guests to Cae Ras, thanks to Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, who often invite Thomas to the owners’ box. The north Walian town has become a hotbed for famous faces, all given the warmest welcome by a club enjoying a meteoric rise.

Garnacho gets his chance to stake a claim, a big day for Port Vale and more scheduling concerns for Guardiola

Who would have thought approaching mid-March Wolves would be the Midlands team – at least in the Premier League – with the most to cheer? Aston Villa, while fourth and still capable of securing a place in the Champions League, are wobbling. Nottingham Forest are fighting relegation. In the Championship, Coventry are at the summit but West Brom and Leicester are in danger of dropping into League One. Wolves may quietly fancy their chances when Liverpool visit Molineux for the second time in four days. Rob Edwards’s side triumphed on Tuesday and, while it got lost amid the stoppage-time drama, he made several changes with Friday’s Cup tie in mind. “Does it have to be one or the other?” Edwards said. “No, so we are going to try and win both. It is going to be a really exciting night.” Ben Fisher

Wolves v Liverpool, Friday 8pm (all kick-offs GMT)

Mansfield v Arsenal, Saturday 12.15pm

Wrexham v Chelsea, Saturday 5.45pm

Newcastle v Manchester City, Saturday 8pm

The problem here is not the interim manager, it’s the ad hoc interim ownership and the short-term sense of identity at this ghost town club

Tudor is to do. To do is to dur. Something like that anyway. With the clock reading 45+8 at the end of the first half the air inside Tottenham Hotspur Stadium had already begun to curdle and turn strange.

In the space of 18 minutes, 1-0 to Spurs had become 3-1 to Crystal Palace. The crowd had begun to turn in on itself. Boos were directed at the players. Boos were directed back at the booers. Birds flew backwards through the sky. The clock struck 13. Beer glasses filled from the bottom up. “You killed the club,” man in a quilted coat shouted at the directors’ box, with genuine feeling, as though this was not a figure of speech, the club actually was dead, before stamping off towards the thrillingly alive empanada and artisan pickle outlets of the vibrant new retail concourse.

The teams meet again on Saturday and in 1982 it took three matches in nine days to find a winner

By That 1980s Sports Blog

In some ways, history is repeating itself. In 1982, Chelsea and Wrexham met in the FA Cup after they had beaten Hull and Nottingham Forest respectively in previous rounds. The same has happened in 2026; but this is where the similarities end.

When the clubs met 44 years ago they were in the second tier and had huge debts. With Chelsea reportedly £1.6m in the red, the future of Stamford Bridge was in doubt as property developers hovered. Relegation-threatened Wrexham spent most of the 1980s merely trying to survive.

Centre-back opens up on the ‘petrifying’ time in 2021 when the left side of her face suddenly dropped as she wants to help others who are affected

One day, in February 2021, Amy Goddard woke up and went for a run. On her return home she took a shower and then looked in the mirror before brushing her teeth. That is when she realised the left side of her face had dropped.

Goddard, who was playing for Crystal Palace semi-professionally in the Championship at the time, went to the hospital and was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy. The illness, which she had not heard of until her diagnosis, causes sudden and typically temporary weakness or paralysis of the muscles on one side of the face. The condition affects one in 70 people in their lifetime in the UK.

Goddard, who is now at WSL 2 side Southampton, says it was a “petrifying” time for her and that it not only affected her physically and mentally but also her football career.

The US president welcomed the 2025 MLS Cup champions in a ceremony beset by tangents and awkward asides

Nine minutes and 43 seconds. As Inter Miami’s players stood behind the dais at the East Room in the White House with club owner Jorge Mas stood to the left and Lionel Messi to the right; with MLS commissioner Don Garber sat alongside Fifa World Cup 2026 task force executive director Andrew Giuliani in an audience replete with celebrities and sports stars, it took nine minutes and 43 seconds for US president Donald Trump to talk about why any of them were there.

Inter Miami won the 2025 MLS Cup; a solid win in an exciting final that merited this traditional visit for champions of US pro sports leagues. But in those minutes and seconds before it was acknowledged, Trump did as he did with Juventus players in an Oval Office appearance during last summer’s Club World Cup: he made sports figures the wallpaper for his political and cultural aims. Trump provided an update of sorts on his administration’s sudden and ongoing war against Iran, alluded to a potential conflict with Cuba and offered his own glowing assessment on the supposedly booming US economy. All the while, Luis Suárez, Messi and every other Miami player gazed blankly from behind him.

Blue Tigresses have overcome off-field chaos and crises to make this tournament and can look to their women’s cricketers for hope

The Indian women’s football team’s quest for history got off to a bittersweet start in Perth on Wednesday. The players had put aside the off-field turbulence they faced in the lead-up to put up a strong fight on the field, only to concede an injury time goal and go down 1-2 to Vietnam.

Despite the result, the game was significant as a marker of how far the Blue Tigresses had come and where they could go, but also for the atmosphere they were greeted with at the Perth Rectangular Stadium.

The MLS champions face a familiar conundrum: lend credence to a warmongering administration, or sit out and draw heat

Donald Trump was not at the White House when the military he commands began bombing Iran over the weekend. He was at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Florida, following the action from a makeshift situation room apparently built from those curtains that you can wheel away. That’s also where he was when American forces kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife a few weeks earlier.

On Thursday, however, Trump will be at the White House for the really important business – namely, receiving Inter Miami as winners of the 2025 MLS Cup.

Ligue 1 clubs such as Monaco, Rennes, Nantes and Reims need the money – and Saudi Pro clubs are willing buyers

By Get French Football News

Signing Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Karim Benzema and N’Golo Kanté brought eyes to the Saudi Pro League but, in their bid to hold that gaze and avoid a repeat of what happened to the Chinese Super League, Saudi clubs have implemented a new strategy and targeted a new demographic. Eighteen months ago, the league introduced an extra spot in squads for foreign players, provided they were under the age of 21 when recruited. Saudi clubs honed in on France, where they have found willing sellers and enthusiastic recruits.

French football is not a self-sustaining ecosystem. Long dead is the dream of a €1bn broadcast rights deal, announced before last season. In the end, clubs earned less than €500m. This season, with the withdrawal of Dazn and the launch of the league’s own Ligue 1 Plus, broadcasting rights will total around €270m. BeIN Sports are pulling out of their deal to broadcast a game each weekend, so receipts will be even lower next season. The league’s channel is likely to earn just €120m for the 18 top-flight clubs. Alarm bells have sounded and salvation has come in an unfamiliar form.

• Iraq team due in Mexico for playoff final on 31 March

• Middle East crisis has made travel plans uncertain

The intercontinental World Cup playoffs are in doubt with officials from the Iraq Football Association (IFA) in crisis talks with Fifa over concerns they may be unable to take part in the final scheduled for Mexico later this month.

The Guardian has learned that the IFA received a letter from Iraq’s national airline, Iraqi Airways, and the Ministry of Transportation informing them that the country’s airspace will remain closed for “at least four weeks”, which would leave around 40% of the squad unable to travel.

The Fifa president’s sycophancy towards the US president has left the organisation facing a new nadir, but any reckoning seems a distant prospect

Mr President. Fellow exco members. We’re going to need a bigger Board of Peace. How many mini‑pitches are we up to now? Gaza got 50 of them last month. What will it take to football-fix the global conflict being set in train by Fifa’s own Peace Prize Boy? A hundred mini-pitches? Four billion mini-pitches? All the mini‑pitches in the universe?

In a more sane version of what we must, out of habit, call the real world, it would seem absurd to talk about sports administration in the context of the US, Iran and the airborne conflict being played out across the borders of their allies.

Breaking from European traditions would bring a TV boost and help build a schedule that works both for players and fans

The announcement that Major League Soccer (MLS) is to switch from a summer season to a winter one has reignited the debate about the National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) schedule.

This is not a new conversation: the pros and cons of alignment with the European calendar have been considered for many years by the NWSL.

If every win is going to be painful from here, you may as well just take the painful wins – welcome to Arsenal’s late title stagger

On Thursday night at a swanky London hotel so luxuriously risk‑averse the toilets are equipped with wireless thermostats to control to within half a degree the heat of the seat, the Premier League chief executive, Richard Masters, spoke in detail for the first time about the prospect of “Premflix”, the direct‑to‑consumer model of the future, an app that will sluice this irresistible footballing opiate directly into the eyeballs of 8 billion rapt humans.

In doing so Masters was echoing the words of Todd Boehly on the same stage 12 months earlier, who had talked about the Premier League as a kind of fire stolen from the gods, source of the next great tech platform, an engine of empire, tool of world domination, of lassoing the moon out of the sky.

Arsenal and Liverpool will fancy their chance of making the quarter-finals, while Manchester City and Newcastle face tougher routes

The Club World Cup final victory over Paris Saint-Germain last summer was probably Enzo Maresca’s finest hour as Chelsea manager. He devised a gameplan, pinging balls over Nuno Mendes for Cole Palmer to chase, backed up by Malo Gusto, that tore the European champions apart in the first half. Liam Rosenior may try to exploit the same vulnerability, but this is a Chelsea that look weary, their exertions in the US perhaps having left them fatigued.

Our cartoonist on a decade of magic moments in the big job for world football’s leading ‘man of the people’

• Buy this cartoon | David’s favourite work of 2025

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The south-east London club have promotion to League One within sight in just their second season in the EFL with their manager central to the transformation

With half an hour to go before kick-off, a roar echoes round the ground. MK Dons have levelled with Cambridge United via a penalty deep into injury time, Aaron Collins scoring from the spot to deny the hosts victory.

In the 20-minute interlude between Shayne Lavery’s opener at the Abbey Stadium and the referee’s fateful whistle, Cambridge looked set to go top of the table. Instead Bromley get under way against Accrington Stanley with a one-point lead at the summit of League Two, much to the relief of the home fans.

Brighton’s yoga-mad, teetotal veteran on the secrets to his longevity after 24 seasons in the English top flight

Being teetotal, always asking questions and taking up yoga in his early 30s after a recommendation from Gareth Barry have played their part. But if one thing inspired James Milner to break the Premier League’s appearance mark then it is a trait honed during his formative years in Yorkshire: sheer bloody-mindedness.

“Some things don’t change,” Milner says with a chuckle when asked whether his desire to prove people wrong was as strong as ever after his 40th birthday last month. “There’s people who are always going to doubt you but that’s always something that’s been at my forefront: to prove them wrong.”

Quansah left Ghana for Ajax as a boy but injury ended his career before it started. He now earns £5 a day as a builder and strives to find a new purpose in life

By The Blizzard

John Quansah looks at a glass display case hanging on the wall of his living room in Obuasi, Ghana. Inside are three trophies from his days as a youth player at Ajax. For years, they lay tucked away in the back of a cupboard, but two years ago, that changed. “I’m an adult now,” John says. “It’s time to look at the past differently. When I look at the trophies now, I don’t just feel pain. I am grateful too – for those beautiful years.”

Of course, he didn’t fulfil his big dream. But not everyone can say they have played for Ajax. He has every reason to be proud, to look back at that time with satisfaction. During a move, he finds the trophies again and decides to mount a display case on the wall of his new living room. Inside, he places three trophies. One for the best player at a youth tournament in Belgium. Next to that, one from another competition, and one he received for sportsmanship, also awarded in Belgium.

In tandem with Game Day Vision, the Premier League club are improving the matchday experience for supporters with a variety of conditions

Thomas Clements’ eyes begin dancing as he recalls in vivid detail his first trip to Highbury. It was 1995 and Ian Wright was among the scorers as QPR were defeated. Clements – named after Michael Thomas, scorer of Arsenal’s decisive second goal against Liverpool in their 1989 title decider – points to his dad, Kevin, standing a metre away. “I was sat on his shoulders in the North Bank,” he says.

That is, in itself, not unusual for a child of the 1980s. However, whereas most regular match-goers might take for granted the seemingly small things – travel arrangements, the journey to the stadium, grabbing food and drink, meeting friends and family, entering and exiting the ground – for disabled supporters such as Clements, careful thought and planning go into all arrangements.

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In recent weeks, the Premier League has descended into a full-blown existential crisis. VAR is increasingly bobbins, various teams are ruining everybody’s fun by Arsenaling about at set pieces and Arne Slot has made the grim admission that he finds “no joy” in the current lack of swashbuckling action. Naturally, the usual suspects are clutching their pearls, wailing that everything was better back when pitches were bogs and tackles were felonies. Desperate for a Tuesday night shot in the arm, The Best League In The World™ offered viewers a choice of four matches so turgid they bordered on the offensive. One was a goalless void; another’s solitary highlight involved a Leeds substitute pilfering a strategically placed towel; a third saw an Everton win so routine it made a documentary on the history of beige paint look like Mad Max: Fury Road. Ultimately, the only drama to be found was at Molineux – and even there both sets of players decided to wait 70 minutes before bothering to engage in some actual football.

You can only go to the coffee shop so many times, you can only feed the chickens and the ducks so many times, and, you know, it gives you that edge. I had the heart pumping, nervous before the game, things like that, and you forget really. I even feel quite stiff if I’m honest, and I’m not really doing much running, but it’s the adrenaline. It was nice to get a result with the fans as well, because they’ve been superb” – Neil Warnock, back in the dugout at 77 as Torquay caretaker, reflects on their 2-2 Conference South draw with Farnborough.

No, I just won’t believe it. Football Daily supposedly won a match 17-0 in Championship Manager 01-02? (yesterday’s Football Daily). Nope, don’t buy that at all. My memory is a bit fuzzy about whether 2001 was the an older era, or even the time of the long-lost ‘TV and Radio’ listings. But there’s no way that Football Daily’s crack staff [erm, OK – Football Daily Ed] was around way back then. Also, Woking?” – Mike Wilner.

Just to follow up on the original Stroopwafel mention (Monday’s Football Daily), lukewarm is really the optimum temperature. Too hot and that caramel is taking the roof of your mouth off and cold is also suboptimal. Derek Smalls it all the way” – Matt Leuw.

Wolves are the modern-day Robin Hood. They rob the rich and give away to the poor” – Krishna Moorthy.

I don’t know how often Football Daily can be described as required reading, but you achieved it on Tuesday. Your inclusion of David Squires’s take on Gianni Infantino’s ‘accomplishments’ in his 10-year reign, followed by a link to Barney Ronay’s – as you aptly described it – ‘excoriating’ column on this same man, offers us all an opportunity to reflect soberly on what we enjoy about football and what, instead, we should wholeheartedly reject. Thank you” – Mike Fichtner.

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The midfielder on her nomadic life, experiencing Nigerian celebrations and the national team’s World Cup prospects

Being an integral figure in the distinguished history of Nigeria’s women’s team is an experience that will never dim in the mind of Jennifer Onyinyechi Echegini. Seven months on from beating the hosts Morocco in a pulsating Women’s Africa Cup of Nations final at Rabat’s Olympic Stadium, in the process winning a record 10th African title, “Joe”, as her Paris Saint-Germain teammates call Echegini – an acronym of her three initials – is yet to come down from her career high.

“Winning the Wafcon is on another level, you know?” the 24-year-old midfielder says from Paris. “The pride and the achievement that I felt … when you’re playing with a group of girls that you love and care for, it makes it even more special.”

Spurs’ slide from title hopefuls to relegation candidates is a story of complete mismanagement and widespread injury

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Last week, after Tottenham had lost 4-1 at home to Arsenal, Igor Tudor was bullish. It was possible leaving his post-match press conference to think he was a man with the energy and personality to drag Spurs away from the relegation zone. This week, after Tottenham had lost 2-1 at Fulham, Tudor was deflated. The previous week he had spoken of defeat in the North London derby as being part of the process, a game that would startle his players into understanding what was required of them. This week, he just mumbled about having to forget the game and move on. A week in the Tottenham job seemed to have broken him.

Tudor is a specialist firefighter. He has saved teams from worse positions than being four points clear of the relegation zone with 10 games to go, which is where Spurs stand now. But that is what makes his defeatist tone so shocking. He spoke of “big problems”, dismissing a question about his 4-4-2 formation with the snort of a man asked about the shade of the carpet in his hallway as his roof burns down. He talked of an attack that lacks quality, of a midfield that cannot run and a defence that is not prepared to “suffer” to keep goals out. He made fairly explicit that he thinks his players lack the requisite character and pointed out how Fulham were better at reading the game, accusing his players of lacking “brain”.

SheBelieves Cup campaign that starts against Argentina will show coach is now refining rather than experimenting

When the whistle blows to start USA v Argentina on Sunday in Nashville, a new period of the Emma Hayes era will begin in earnest. The team preparing to play La Albiceleste in Tennessee for the 11th SheBelieves Cup, followed by Canada and Colombia, is the first in more than a year to feature no uncapped players.

For a head coach who spent 2025 setting, challenging or matching all-time USWNT records for capping players, that is a notable shift and it marks the next phase of the team’s World Cup preparation.

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When Fabian Hürzeler grumbled about Arsenal’s penchant for time-wasting ahead of their visit to the Amex Stadium, he knew exactly what levers he was pulling. While he may have been speaking to the ladies and gentlemen of the press, Brighton’s head coach was playing to a different gallery: his own team’s fans and the match officials tasked with maintaining order. By highlighting the ticking clock before a ball had even been kicked, Hürzeler effectively primed the Amex faithful to jeer and barrack every slow corner or carefully choreographed shoulder injury. More importantly, the German placed the referee in an extremely tricky position: ignore any stalling and appear weak, or brandish an early yellow and validate Hürzeler’s gamesmanship. Between his presser and kick-off, much of the discourse revolved around whether or not Arsenal are masters of the “strategic pause”, with some Social Media Disgrace users even going so far as to produce a Premier League table of time-wasting. True to form, Arsenal couldn’t even win that but it didn’t matter. Irritating their head coach was half the battle for Hürzeler, as an agitated Mikel Arteta is prone to touchline histrionics that often bleed on to the pitch and affect his players as the pressure mounts.

Robyn Cowen is joined by Barry Glendenning, John Brewin and Jonathan Liew as Manchester City drop points against Nottingham Forest and Arsenal extend their lead at the top of the table to seven points

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On the podcast today: was this the night Arsenal won the title? An unconvincing victory at Brighton thanks to a deflected goal that should have been saved and dropped points for Manchester City at the Etihad see the Gunners go seven clear at the top.

Plus: hat-trick heroes who were not named player of the match, managers sacked after big wins, and more

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“A few weeks ago, Sandra Jessen started for FC Köln against Essen,” notes James Vortkamp-Tong. “Is this the first time a player has contained the opposing side’s name in their own?”

It’s not actually the first time Sandra Jessen has played against Essen, as Alicia Butteriss points out. “From what I can tell she first started against Essen, for Bayer Leverkusen, on the last day of the 2018-19 Frauen Bundesliga,” writes Alicia. “It would be remiss of me not to add that she scored both of Köln’s goals when they beat Essen 2-1 near the start of this season.”

Robyn Cowen is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jordan Jarrett-Bryan and Seb Hutchinson to review the first batch of midweek Premier League action, including another win for Wolves at home

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On the podcast today: Wolves beat Liverpool in injury time thanks to a deflected André goal, his first in 60 games for Wolves. The great escape surely couldn’t be on … could it?

Ousmane Dembélé becomes our seventh winner as he beats Lamine Yamal into second and Vitinha into third on our list of the best players on the planet

• Premier League dominates list | How every judge voted | Our methodology | The top 100 female players for 2025

• 2024 edition | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

The Frenchman, who has been named the best male footballer in the world by the Guardian, has benefitted from PSG’s focus on the team rather than individuals

What makes a good player great, and a great player the best? This question has been occupying me since 2014, when the Guardian first asked me to contribute to its inaugural Next Generation feature. My job was to look for a France-based talent born in 1997 who could go on to have a stellar career.

After a great deal of research, I narrowed it down from my shortlist of five by asking questions not about the players’ football ability, but about other attributes: resilience, adaptability, decision-making, creativity, work ethic, response to feedback and willingness to learn. Qualities we cannot see, and are harder to measure.

Aitana Bonmatí has been voted the best female player on the planet by our panel of 127 experts ahead of Mariona Caldentey and Alessia Russo

• 2024 list | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018

• Meet the judges | See how every judge voted

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The margin may have got smaller but the brilliant Spanish midfielder makes it a hat-trick of No 1 finishes

They say the best things come in threes, and Aitana Bonmatí has written herself into the Guardian’s top 100 history as the first player to finish at the top of the tree for a third consecutive year.

Last year the majestic midfielder emulated her Barcelona and Spain teammate Alexia Putellas by winning for a second year running, but the 27-year-old has now gone one better, establishing herself once again at the top of the women’s game.

From PSG’s Ibrahim Mbaye to Brazil’s next hope, we select some of the most talented players born in 2008. Check the progress of our classes of 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 … and go even further back. Here’s our Premier League class of 2025