Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen and Marcus Bean on races for the Premier League title and top-four places, the Football League play-offs, the Bundesliga and for Callum Hudson-Odoi’s signatureJoin the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.We look back at the weekend of football just gone, starting with Liverpool’s last-minute win over Spurs, taking them back to the top of the table courtesy of a Toby Alderweireld own goal. Continue reading...
Many Lyon fans are crying out for a new manager but the club’s veteran president is likely to stay loyal to Bruno GenesioBy Adam White and Eric Devin for Get French Football NewsThis week could prove pivotal in the recent history of Lyon. A cup semi-final and a decision over embattled coach Bruno Genesio’s future will go some way to shaping the club’s longer term prospects. Outspoken yet inspirational president Jean-Michel Aulas looks likely to persist with Genesio, whose stewardship of the team has fluctuated wildly during his three years in charge, in a decision that will incite fan ire and ignore flirtatious glances from José Mourinho. Aulas’ stubbornness may have finally gotten the better of him.During Aulas’ 32-year presidency,...
It’s not that Iago Aspas is Celta’s best player; it is that, as this weekend demonstrated once again, Iago Aspas is CeltaIn the end, it all became too much and Iago Aspas broke down and wept, slumped into his seat sobbing. One by one, his team-mates came to him, putting an arm around his heaving shoulders, taking it in turns to hold him. All around, they sang: 22,315 of them, people just like him, chanting his name. He sat, eyes red, and half-watched the final minutes of a match he had won, lost in his thoughts. Through his tears, football was a better place, more meaningful. Balaídos certainly was, signs of life at last – and this was life. Here...
Borussia Dortmund scored two goals in stoppage time as Robert Lewandowksi spurned late chances for Bayern Munich to set up an enticing title run-inAll roads lead to Munich. At the end of a week in which it was announced France’s World Cup-winning defender Lucas Hernández would arrive at Bayern in the summer – after the champions paid a fee almost double the Bundesliga’s existing highest for an incoming player – Marco Reus will also head for Bavaria, as a Borussia Dortmund player, of course, but there had been doubt about the captain making the journey. This weekend Reus’s first child, a baby girl, arrived a few days earlier than expected, freeing daddy up to lead his side in what could...
The Inter striker appeared to have been reintegrated smoothly back into the squad but Luciano Spalletti’s decision not to play him in the defeat to Lazio seemed strangeInter were poised, at last, to put this season’s most disruptive soap opera behind them. Mauro Icardi had returned to first-team training on Tuesday, ending a 40-day absence that began when he was stripped of the club captaincy. It felt like an opportune moment: spirits were high following a win over Milan, and half the squad was away on international duty, including colleagues with whom he had clashed.The striker appeared to reintegrate smoothly. News outlets circulated videos of him passing the ball to Ivan Perisic – his purported personal rival – during a...