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Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou says he has “not given up” on their chances of finishing in the top four and qualifying for the Champions League.
Spurs are seven points behind Aston Villa, who currently occupy fourth, but have a game in hand. Spurs face Burnley, Manchester City and Sheffield United in their remaining fixtures while Unai Emery’s side take on Liverpool and Crystal Palace.
Aston Villa can secure the last Champions League spot with a victory over Liverpool on Monday night.
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Ange Postecoglou has ‘not given up’ on Tottenham’s Champions League chances
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Mauricio Pochettino believes the uncertainty over his future as Chelsea head coach is having a negative impact on staff members.
Chelsea have decided that Pochettino’s position as head coach will be discussed as part of a season review following their final game against Bournemouth next week.
He has one year left on his contract with the option for another 12 months, but the Chelsea hierarchy have yet to confirm privately or publicly whether he will still be at Stamford Bridge for 2024-25.
The lack of clarity has led to speculation over potential successors. Pochettino insists the situation is not causing him or the players cause for concern, but is worried about what it is doing elsewhere in the set-up.
He said: “I am so comfortable and you know us (Pochettino and his coaching staff) after more than 10 years of working here in England (Southampton, Tottenham and Chelsea). We are so comfortable.
“In the way we are not comfortable is to put in doubt — like you are talking — are you going to be here or not here? First, it is not my decision because if the owners are thinking to change — yes, for sure in one week we will know. That’s an instability with which we are comfortable with working.
“It’s true that in the last few months that question is always coming. You need to kill the rumours if that’s not true, if not the rumour is there for a different strategy. If you ask is it affecting me? It is not affecting me. Is it affecting the people working with us? I think yes because in the end you can kill the rumour, sack me and that’s not a problem. It happens in a lot of clubs.
"They (the players) don’t need anything. They are really focused. We have the respect from every single player. But the fans and staff, yes, they need to know."
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Mauricio Pochettino suggests he could decide to leave Chelsea: ‘Maybe we are not happy’
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Liverpool winger Kaide Gordon has signed a new long-term contract with the club.
The 19-year-old joined Liverpool from Derby County in 2021 and has made seven senior appearances for the Merseyside club.
He became Liveprool’s youngest-ever scorer in the FA Cup when he scored during Liverpool’s 4-1 victory over Shrewsbury Town in the FA Cup in January 2022.
The teenager was out for over a year and a half due to a pelvic growth issue. He returned to training in June 2023.
Liverpool are next in action against Aston Villa at Villa Park on Monday.
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Flick would not represent a step forward for Bayern, but he would be a step in the right direction.
To this point, there have been virtues to every coach the club have been linked with, but each one has also been associated with risk too – Julian Nagelsmann because of the board’s lack of complete support, Xabi Alonso’s relative inexperience, Unai Emery’s vast coaching staff and inability to speak German, and Ralf Rangnick’s coaching credentials.
Bayern have been mocked for their inability to make a successful appointment, but none of those options were truly perfect. That Erik ten Hag was briefly a candidate, despite enduring such a torrid time at Manchester United, makes that point clearly.
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Bayern Munich open talks with Hansi Flick over becoming club’s new head coach
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When the pain of defeat eventually subsides, the first question Paris Saint-Germain will ask is how they failed to score a single goal in this Champions League semi-final.
PSG mustered 44 attempts across the two legs against Borussia Dortmund, six of which hit the woodwork. That is not easy to explain.
“What does it depend on? The Holy Spirit passing by,” quipped a bemused Luis Enrique. “We had more than three expected goals tonight.
When the goals do not flow the focus turns to goalscorer Mbappe — even more so given none of this went to script.
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Kylian Mbappe denied his fairytale finale but PSG still have hope for the future
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There is a famous photograph of Kylian Mbappe as a 14-year-old at home in Bondy on the outskirts of Paris, sitting on his bed in a room plastered with posters of his hero Cristiano Ronaldo.
When talking about the extraordinary rise of a young athlete, from humble beginnings to the biggest stages in world sport, we are almost duty-bound to suggest there is no way he could have imagined what lay ahead back then.
:ighting up the Champions League for Monaco and signing for Paris Saint-Germain in a €180million ($198million, £155 million) deal at 18, winning the World Cup at 19, scoring a hat-trick for France in a World Cup final at 23, becoming PSG’s record goalscorer at 24 and now seemingly heading towards fulfilling another ambition by joining Real Madrid at 25 after informing PSG he is leaving the club at the end of the season.
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Kylian Mbappe: The incredible, inevitable rise of a superstar as he leaves PSG
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While Mbappe’s exit from PSG is only now official, it has not exactly been an unforeseen eventuality. Speculation about his future has been a regular, and often tiresome, soap opera.
Mbappe is not just any old player — and not only because of his talent. He is the most influential French player to have ever worn their shirt.
He may have insisted that the club was not ‘Kylian Saint-Germain’ in a marketing dispute last year but, at least in recent times, it is hard to escape the veracity of that description.
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Kylian Mbappe confirms he will leave PSG at the end of this season
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Kylian Mbappe is the best French player to have worn the PSG shirt. Arguably, he is their best of all time, and perhaps their most important and influential.
Since he signed for Monaco in the summer of 2017, initially on loan and then made permanent for an eye-watering €180million (now £153.8m; $193.7m), PSG have transformed as a club.
They are now an internationally recognised brand, a super club, a team who have boasted star players and Mbappe has been at the heart of it.
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Kylian Mbappe confirms he will leave PSG at the end of this season
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Kylian Mbappe has announced that he will be leaving Paris Saint-Germain at the end of the season.
The Athletic previously reported that the 25-year-old forward would leave the French club when his contract expires.
He confirmed that he will play his final game at Parc des Princes this Sunday when his side take on Toulouse.
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Kylian Mbappe confirms he will leave PSG at the end of this season
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Richarlison’s Tottenham season appears to be over after the Brazilian striker was ruled out of the Copa America with a calf injury.
Richarlison was surprisingly not included in Brazil’s 23-man squad for the Copa America, with manager Dorival Junior explaining on Friday afternoon to Brazilian media that he has a fresh injury which has “not yet been made official by the club”.
Earlier on Friday Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou gave a press conference previewing Saturday’s Premier League game against Burnley during which he said that there was no fresh team news since Spurs’ last game.
Richarlison’s unavailability for the Copa America should rule him out of the Burnley game, Spurs’ game with Manchester City on Tuesday night and then their last official game of the season at Sheffield United next Sunday.
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Tottenham’s Richarlison likely to miss rest of season and Copa America with calf injury
Michael Edwards has brought back former Liverpool sporting director Julian Ward as Fenway Sports Group’s (FSG) new technical director.
Ward has been convinced to return to the fold a year after stepping down to take a break from football.
Edwards, who took on the role of FSG’s CEO of football in March to oversee the post Jurgen Klopp era, has also appointed Benfica’s Pedro Marques as director of football development.
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Julian Ward returns to Liverpool as FSG technical director, Pedro Marques named director of football development
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777 Partners’ eight-month attempt to buy Everton appears to be effectively over after the Miami-based investment firm called in restructuring experts in attempt to save the crisis-hit business.
In a memo sent on Thursday evening, staff were told that “a team of professionals from B Riley Advisory Services” had been retained to help 777 get through “various operational challenges”.
They include 17 different lawsuits filed against the firm for unpaid debts, accusations of fraud and the financial collapse of 777’s Australian airline Bonza.
The memo, which The Athletic has seen, explains that Mark Shapiro, a senior managing director at B Riley Advisory Services, is now 777’s interim chief operating officer, with two of Shapiro’s colleagues joining him in “governance roles”.
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Prospective Everton owner 777 calls in restructuring firm leaving takeover bid in jeopardy
Bayern Munich have opened talks with Hansi Flick regarding the possibility of him becoming the club’s next head coach.
Flick, 59, previously managed Bayern for two years between 2019 and 2021, winning the Champions League and back-to-back Bundesliga titles before taking over as Germany’s national team head coach for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
It was announced in February that Thomas Tuchel would step down at the end of the season having been appointed in March last year on a contract through to 2025.
Bayern have now begun discussions with Flick in the hope of bringing the former Germany head coach back to the Allianz Arena for a second spell.
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Bayern Munich open talks with Hansi Flick over becoming club’s new head coach
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Casemiro, Gabriel Jesus, Thiago Silva and Richarlison have all been left out of Dorival Junior’s provisional Brazil squad for the Copa America 2024.
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Casemiro, Jesus, Silva and Richarlison left out of Brazil provisional Copa America squad
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Marco Silva is interested in appointing Casa Pia manager Goncalo Santos as his new assistant coach, but no decision has been taken yet.
Silva is looking for a replacement for Luis Boa Morte, who is set to become the new head coach of Guinnea-Bissau.
Santos, 37, is currently taking his first steps into management with Casa Pia, in Portugal. He took over in February on an interim basis with Casa Pia 16th, and in a relegation place, however he has since guided the team to safety. They are now 11th in the table.
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Marco Silva interested in appointing Goncalo Santos as Fulham assistant coach
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Mikel Arteta has credited Jorginho as an "inspiration" to his Arsenal team-mates after the Italian midfielder signed a new deal with the club.
The 32-year-old joined from Chelsea last January but his deal was set to expire in July before he agreed a new short-term deal that will keep him as part of the squad for next season.
He has started 19 games in all competitions this season but his experience has seen him become an important member of the squad.
"First of all, as a player on the pitch because he’s phenomenal and he gives us so much," said Arteta.
"Then for the rest of the qualities he has to bring to the team, to the squad, to our culture, to our club. We are happy to have him."
His big game know-how and personality are also part of the equation that saw Arteta and sporting director Edu keen for him to extend his stay.
"It’s impossible not to like him," said Arteta.
"He’s a super special person. A great family man with a lot of experience. He knows how to talk to people and how to drive a team, and he knows very well how to inspire people and be part of a really important team."
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Jay Stansfield will be a part of the first team picture at Fulham next season, according to Marco Silva.
Stansfield has spent the past season on loan at Birmingham City, who have had endured a difficult campaign and were relegated to the League One last weekend. But Stansfield has excelled during his loan stay, and at Birmingham's end-of-season awards ceremony last weekend, he completed a clean sweep of the men's awards.
Stansfield was named the supporters' player of the season, players' player of the season and young player of the season, as well as taking the gong for top goalscorer and goal of the season.
His exploits have not gone unnoticed by Fulham coach Silva.
"Yes he is going to be with us," confirmed Silva. "Everything went as we planned, apart from the collective goal of Birmingham. For sure that wasn't what they expected nor wanted. But all the other boxes were ticked.
"The plan was for him to play in a different team, in the Championship, to be an important piece in their attacking line, to score important goals and to create a relationship with the fans. If you have a good relationship with the fans, that means you give everything and are an important piece at the club.
"Jay achieved all of this in this loan spell. Now is a moment for him to come back and be one of the players in our attack line."
Silva suggested that Stansfield would be a good option either as a No 9, or as a wide player for Fulham.
"He can play in both positions," he said. "Of course, he would be a slightly different wide player to the ones we normally use.
"But his main position is through the middle. He's stronger with two strikers than just alone, but this season he played many games alone as a No 9. He did it well."
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Fulham head coach Marco Silva has insisted that his side "will do their maximum" to defeat Manchester City on Saturday and dismissed any idea that his side would lack motivation for the game.
Fulham have already secured their top flight status this season and are not fighting for anything more than league position in their remaining two games. Manchester City, meanwhile, are still fighting for the title.
Their title rivals, Arsenal, require Manchester City to drop points in at least one of their remaining three games if they are to claim the Premier League crown.
“We are going to do our job like we have done this season, that's it," said Silva. "We will prepare ourselves for the match and we are going to do our maximum to get points for us and not do favours for others."
Fulham have a poor record against Manchester City. The west London club have lost their last 15 league meetings with the champions, and defeat on Saturday would mark a new English Football League record for the most consecutive defeats against one side.
However, while they suffered a 5-1 defeat at the Etihad earlier this season, they did reduce City to just seven shots, City's joint third lowest return this season. Fulham's defensive record has also improved, and only Arsenal or City have conceded fewer goals in 2024 than Fulham.
A video published on Instagram this week showed Fulham players flying a kite at the club's training ground, leading to some on social media to question their motivation.
But Silva dismissed any questions about the kites, insisting it was a noise created on social media, and said his team will be ready for City.
"I have been motivating our players every single week," he said. "We achieved 39 points around the international break, the questions I faced then were about motivation and the English expression about if the players would be 'on the beach'. It's not the case, and it's not something I need to spend time talking about with my players.
"They know the demands every day. If they are relaxed, I'm the first one to put pressure on them. That's the way we've worked for three years. That won't be different now because of where we are in the table."
Fulham will be without Sasa Lukic for Saturday's early kick off, as he will miss out as a precaution following a small calf issue.
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The futures of Ajax players such as Jordan Henderson and Steven Bergwijn have been cast into doubt as the club count the cost of missing out on Champions League qualification for the second consecutive season.
Henderson arrived as a free agent in January having terminated his contract at Saudi Pro League side Al Ettifaq, signing until June 2026.
The 33-year-old England international joined the likes of Bergwijn as one of Ajax’s highest earners, but financial problems at the Johan Cruyff Arena mean that both of them are among those facing an uncertain outlook.
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Jordan Henderson and Steven Bergwijn’s Ajax futures in doubt with prospect of no European football next season