For Xabi Alonso, the slide towards the abyss has looked sudden from the outside. Everything was fine at the beginning of November, the results excellent. Since when precious little has gone his way. The Real Madrid manager desperately needed something here. When this latest game eluded him, it was easy to fear the worst. Time is not a commodity afforded to men in his position. Alonso has now won only twice in eight matches in all competitions and if his pain was deep, there was simply satisfaction for Pep Guardiola. The Manchester City manager had arrived in Madrid – the scene of so much emotion for him over the years – needing a response to the home defeat to Bayer Leverkusen in his club’s previous Champions League game. Continue reading...

A moment of sheer brilliance in the 65th minute from Rayan Cherki had all at the Etihad Stadium sucking air in awe. The Frenchman burst along the right and cut back, then delivered a scintillating rabona plum on to the head of Phil Foden, who nodded home off the bar. Manchester City had cruised to a 3-0 lead and were heading for second, two points off the top, after Arsenal’s defeat at Aston Villa. The manager will adore Cherki’s man-of-the-match display as much as there being no second-half defensive horror show to follow the one at Fulham, and you have to wonder if City will again break the hearts of the Gunners come May. If Cherki continues to play as he did here then he will join Foden and Erling Haaland as City’s gun attackers who will give them the best chance of yet another crown. Continue reading...

‘We want to bring him into more threatening situations’ Conor Bradley available for Saturday’s trip to Leeds Arne Slot has conceded Liverpool are not bringing the best out of record signing Alexander Isak and must maximise his strengths in the manner Manchester City do with Erling Haaland. The £125m striker scored his first Premier League goal for Liverpool in last Sunday’s win at West Ham but was unable to build on that breakthrough against Sunderland on Wednesday. Isak had another quiet game. Slot has repeatedly defended Isak’s slow start as an inevitable consequence of missing pre-season with Newcastle, when he effectively downed tools to force his exit, but Liverpool’s head coach admits his team are also culpable for the player’s problems. Continue reading...

Perhaps the data-soaked discourse of modern football actually does this Premier League centurion something of a disservice Stack them up. Pile them high. Sort them and arrange them, parse them and categorise them, order them to your table like items in a Chinese restaurant. Personal favourites? Give me the No 33 against Arsenal, the one with the flowing hair. I’ll also take a No 81 against Chelsea, when he spots a hapless Robert Sánchez out of goal, and lobs him deliciously from the edge of the area. Give me a No 98 against Bournemouth, in which he deliberately slants his run around the keeper, slots it in from a tight angle, tries to clamber atop the advertising hoardings in triumph, loses his balance, collapses in peals of giggles. And maybe chuck in a No 53 against Brentford, in which Kristoffer Ajer somehow manages to fall over without being touched, spooked into incoherence by his very presence. Continue reading...

This was billed as a clash of two of the best teams in Europe and for most of a cold evening in north London it felt like it. An absorbing game which ebbed and flowed throughout saw Bayern Munich’s rising star Lennart Karl cancel out Jurriën Timber’s opening goal from a corner before Noni Madueke and Gabriel Martinelli sealed a deserved win for Mikel Arteta’s side to maintain their 100% record in the Champions League so far and go top of the table. A place in the knockout stages now seems a mere formality. Harry Kane let it slip in the buildup to this match that scoring against Arsenal gives him “a bit more joy” than any other club. But the England striker barely had a sight of goal as a Bayern side that had also won their first four matches in the Champions League group stage were taught a lesson. Arteta resisted the temptation to make wholesale changes before Sunday’s top-of-the-table clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. He opted to start Cristhian Mosquera in central defence rather than Piero Hincapié as Myles Lewis-Skelly came in at left-back, while there was a welcome return for the captain, Martin Ødegaard, on the bench. Continue reading...

Minute by minute updates on the north London derby Any notes or queries? You can email Daniel Arteta speaks, explaining that he went for Hincapie because he thinks this is the best partnership available to him in the absence of Gabriel. Odegaard and Gyokeres aren’t far off he says, and he expected to face a back three as Frank has done it against Arsenal before and they’ve planned for it. “It’s a massive and a beautiful day,” he concludes. “So many people you can make happy.” Continue reading...

Record scorer for Norway’s age-group sides discusses his World Cup hope, being frozen out at 15 and fake tickets heartbreak at Anfield Liverpool against Aston Villa on 18 January 2014. It was impossible to measure the excitement in an seven-year-old from Norway making his first pilgrimage to Anfield. Inside was the promise of watching his favourite player, Daniel Sturridge, and the rest of a freewheeling side throwing everything at a title push. But as Sindre Walle Egeli and his family reached the turnstiles, the cruelest of realities dawned. “It’s not a good memory,” Walle Egeli says. “We showed up, ready to go, and it turned out we’d got fake tickets. I don’t know what happened, maybe my parents bought from some shady people. It was heartbreaking.” Continue reading...

Defender ‘out for weeks’ and will now have further scan Ødegaard the only injured player set to return for Arsenal Mikel Arteta expects Gabriel Magalhães to be out for weeks with the thigh injury sustained on international duty and admitted losing “the leader of our backline” was a blow to Arsenal’s title aspirations. The Brazil defender was sent back to Arsenal for treatment after picking up the injury in a friendly against Senegal at the Emirates last weekend. Arteta revealed Gabriel was due to have further scans on Wednesday, the day Arsenal host Bayern Munich in the Champions League. Continue reading...

Which players have run the furthest, taken the most long throws and fouled the most without seeing a card? By Opta Analyst You know that Erling Haaland is the top scorer in the Premier League and that David Raya is great at keeping them out at the other end of the pitch, but what about the quirkier metrics? Who covers the pitch but sees the penalty area as their kryptonite? Which defender loves one-v-one battles? Who prefers to shoot without taking a touch to settle themselves? Continue reading...

With a tough away game at Newcastle for FPL top scorer Erling Haaland, gameweek 12 presents a chance to give the captain's armband to someone else - and that man is Mohamed Salah.

Generational goalgetter Erling Haaland will get a crack at his first major tournament next summer, after leading Norway to the World Cup.

Brentford were tipped to struggle this season but Thiago’s goals have helped them climb up the Premier League table By WhoScored On a crisp November afternoon in Brentford, Igor Thiago did what record signings are supposed to do: score twice. The Brazilian’s double against Newcastle took his goal tally this season to eight in 11 Premier League games, second only to Erling Haaland, and offered further proof that Brentford’s £30m gamble in the summer of 2024 was a wise one. Brentford fans must have had their doubts last season. After arriving from Club Brugge to replace Ivan Toney, Thiago’s first season was quiet, disjointed and frustrating. Two knee injuries restricted him to just eight appearances, 168 minutes and no goals. Continue reading...

It was all about which of these rivals could capitalise on Arsenal’s draw at Sunderland on Saturday, who could make a statement about their intention to chase down the Premier League leaders. It was Manchester City who cleared their throats and made it plain that they are in this race for the long-haul. Liverpool barely got a word out. The table looks a lot more appealing for Pep Guardiola and his players now, City just four points behind Arsenal and it was an occasion when they blew Liverpool away. They could shrug off the inconvenience of Erling Haaland missing a controversially awarded 13th minute penalty to put on a show of strength, particularly in the first-half. Continue reading...

Watch highlights as Erling Haaland scores twice for Manchester City in a 3-1 win against Bournemouth which lifts Pep Guardiola's side up to second in the Premier League.