Benjamin Sesko makes it 1-1 deep in stoppage time at West Ham.
“Benjamin Sesko’s career at Manchester United breaks into two distinct periods. In the first, he played 1,404 minutes of football and scored two goals. In the second, he has played 274 minutes and scored six goals: 702 minutes per goal and then 45 minutes 40 seconds per goal. There’s a very obvious explanation. On 4 January, Sesko toiled in a 1-1 draw at Leeds. He didn’t manage a shot on target. He completed only 76% of his passes. He didn’t attempt a dribble but still lost possession five times. He was caught offside twice. On 5 January, Ruben Amorim was sacked. On 6 January, Sesko scored both goals in a 2-2 draw at Burnley. …”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
Spring in Sesko’s step is thanks to Carrick scrapping Amorim’s tactical stranglehold
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“Football’s lawmakers attempts to combat timewasting will subject substitutions, throw-ins and goal-kicks to time limits from this summer. There are also changes to expand the scope of the sport’s video assistant referee (VAR) system, which will now be permitted to check and review red cards ‘arising from a clearly incorrect second yellow card’, cases of ‘mistaken identity’ when a yellow or red card are shown, and cases of a ‘clearly incorrectly awarded corner kick’. The International Football Association Board (IFAB) met for their annual general meeting near Cardiff on Saturday and ratified changes to the laws ahead of the World Cup beginning in June. …”
“The first half of Everton versus Manchester United was a low-on-entertainment slogfest. The Monday night kick-off was in keeping with many Premier League games this season, with teams finding it harder to create goalscoring chances in open play and focusing more on set-piece opportunities. Football can often be described as “a game of mistakes”, and this season has seen an increase in games where teams are so focused on avoiding them that they lose sight of how to proactively force one from the opposition. Thankfully, the second half brought something more entertaining. …”
“The shock value is notable. The Serie A champions not making it through the Champions League league phase. The current best in class and league leaders by 10 points 
“Atletico Madrid’s 7-4 aggregate Champions League play-off round victory over Club Brugge sees Diego Simeone’s new-look side roll on to face either Liverpool or Tottenham Hotspur in the last 16, and comes as veteran attacker Antoine Griezmann mulls a possible move to MLS. The build-up to Tuesday’s game 
“Tonight’s Champions League match between Real Madrid and Benfica sees Jose Mourinho return to the Bernabeu for the first time since his turbulent spell at the Spanish club from 2010 to 2013. He does so in dramatic circumstances. Last Tuesday’s knockout phase play-off first leg between the teams saw Mourinho sent off for protesting from the sidelines during a 1-0 defeat for his Portuguese side. After the game, he made headlines around the world with his comments about the alleged racist abuse of Madrid forward Vinicius Jr by Benfica winger Gianluca Prestianni. …”
Queretaro (in red) will be forced to play their league match on a later date 
“The year that Inter last won the Champions League, their historic treble season of 2009-10, Bodo/Glimt finished sixth in the Norwegian second division. We could be here for quite a while, listing ways to measure the gulf in the respective sizes and international reputations of these two clubs, but that seems as good as any. One of the most historic and storied football clubs to ever exist — 20-time Serie A champions and three-time European champions — were beaten on Tuesday, and beaten easily, by ‘a team from a small town up north’, as their head coach, Kjetil Knutsen, put it after the game. …”
“Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season, The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s football. This was the round where Arsenal answered a few critics with another 4-1 victory against Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool boosted their Champions League prospects with a smash-and-grab win at Nottingham Forest, moving them level on points with Chelsea, who stuttered at home to Burnley. We will ask whether talk over Arsenal’s supposed fragile mentality is valid, question just how much trouble Spurs are in and ponder what on earth has happened to Crystal Palace. …”
One of the biggest cheers of the night from Benfica fans was the introduction of their young Black striker Arthur Cabral
“Liverpool had one Alexis Mac Allister goal disallowed in the 90th minute and one Alexis Mac Allister goal allowed in the 97th minute, earning Arne Slot’s side a late victory against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground. The first was ruled out for striking his elbow, and the second was given after a lengthy delay ruled that Ola Aina’s left boot had played Virgil van Dijk onside in the build-up to Mac Allister finding the back of the net with seconds left to play. The win papers over the cracks of a disappointing display from Liverpool against 
“One of the themes of Manchester City’s attack this season has been their ability to operate in a narrow or wide shape depending on the available players and the opponent’s setup. This flexibility was evident in City’s 2-1 victory away to Nottingham Forest in December, when the switch from a narrow 4-3-3 shape on the ball to a 3-1-3-3 in the second half stretched the opponent’s shape and created spaces between the lines. In either of those attacking shapes, the rotations and fluidity have helped City 
La Liga has reacted to 26 instances of racist abuse towards Vinicius Junior
“Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Barcelona, our weekly series to follow throughout La Liga’s 2025-26 season. Every week, we will bring you key information and analysis on the biggest talking points, cutting through the noisy world of all things Barca with reporting you can trust. The information contained in this article reflects multiple conversations with various sources at the Spanish champions, all of whom wanted to speak anonymously to protect relationships. …”
“Xabi Alonso’s response to a question about his preferred playing style in his first press conference as Real Madrid head coach last May was instructive. … Alvaro Arbeloa’s response to the same question seven-and-a-half months later, after being promoted to the first-team job from coaching in the club’s academy in the wake of Alonso’s January 12 sacking, was much simpler. …”
“… Anatoliy Trubin has had a bit more time to process what happened in the 98th minute of Benfica’s final Champions League group game against Real Madrid. But it still doesn’t feel entirely real. To recap: because of injuries and a couple of VAR reviews in the first half, the game was still going six or seven minutes after every other fixture on the last, chaotic day of the group stage had finished. That meant Benfica knew what they had to do to make it into the playoffs for the knockout stages. Well, in theory they did. …”
“New Year, new managers. Chelsea kicked things off when they sacked Enzo Maresca on New Year’s Day, before Manchester United parted company with Ruben Amorim four days later. Now, after a pair of February firings this week, there have been four Premier League sackings already in 2026, the most ever seen across the first two months of a calendar year. Tottenham Hotspur reignited the sacking spree when they dismissed Thomas Frank on Wednesday, while Nottingham Forest relieved Sean Dyche of his duties less than 24 hours later, releasing a statement in the early hours of Thursday following their 0-0 draw at home to last-place-by-a-mile Wolverhampton Wanderers the previous evening. …”
Sandro Tonali of Newcastle complains to referee Chris Kavanagh during Saturday’s FA Cup game against Aston Villa
Fabian Hurzeler pictured during Brighton’s FA Cup tie at Anfield on Saturday
Tottenham Hotspur’s sporting director Johan Lange (left) and CEO Vinai Venkatesham, the men who will appoint a long-term successor to Thomas Frank
“After beating Barnsley in the FA Cup last month, Arne Slot admitted that his approach to analysing opponents might need a rethink. ‘We’ve played 30 games this season and I’d say 28 of my pre-match meetings, I could just throw in the bin,’ he said in a press conference, highlighting the extent to which he feels teams have altered their approach when lining up against Liverpool. For context — and this is important — Slot was not suggesting that opponents should roll over and play into Liverpool’s hands. Against Barnsley, for example, he acknowledged that he also would have adopted defensive tactics in their position. …”
“All FA Cup draws are equal, but some are more equal than others. It is an age-old maxim for managers to rebuff suggestions that they have been handed a favourable tie in football’s oldest competition. Jose Mourinho provided a classic of the genre when his Premier League employers Tottenham were given a third-round tie away to Middlesbrough of the second-tier Championship in the 2019-20 competition. …”
“Liverpool came through a bruising encounter away to Sunderland, with battles across the pitch and a serious-looking injury to Wataru Endo. Virgil van Dijk’s goal just after the hour was enough to seal three points at the Stadium of Light and inflict the hosts’ first home defeat of the season after a first half in which Liverpool missed several chances, before Endo had to be carried off a few minutes later to add to their right-back concerns. …”
“A couple of weeks ago, two football stories which seemed unrelated were, in reality, very much connected. The first story was 
“Sean Dyche was right when he observed that Evangelos Marinakis was unlikely to sack him on the back of one poor performance by his Nottingham Forest side at Leeds United. But there is a reason Forest’s match tonight (Wednesday) against fellow relegation candidates Wolverhampton Wanderers feels as though it will carry an additional weight for their head coach. It is not just one game that has left Dyche’s position in the spotlight less than four months into his tenure as Forest’s third head coach of this season, but the cumulative effect of several recent displays. …”
Dominik Szoboszlai departs down the tunnel after his late red card against Manchester City
Jorgen Strand Larsen, James Ward-Prowse and Tony Pulis
“Manchester United’s interim manager has long been on the premises, if not in the building. In recent years Michael Carrick was a regular visitor at the club’s Carrington training ground, sitting unassumingly in his car for hours, waiting for his son Jacey, now 15, to finish training with United’s junior sides. Those staff who are still around — and many are not — from when Carrick left United in December 2021 after his previous interim spell in charge would say hello, but the man himself usually kept a low profile. …”
“… Joseph Oughourlian, owner of Racing Club de Lens, was responding to a question from The Athletic about what it would mean for Lens — a city in northern France with a population of just 35,000 — to pip Paris Saint-Germain to the Ligue 1 title. With 20 matches played in Ligue 1, and 14 remaining, Lens trail the European champions by just two points, having been leading at Christmas for the winter break. They will have a keen eye on PSG’s next match, at home to Marseille in Le Classique on Sunday night. For Lens to even be in the title mix at this stage is a remarkable achievement. …”
“Of the many ways that Pep Guardiola is not a typical football manager, the strength with which he holds his political convictions is especially striking. On Tuesday, a seemingly routine pre-match press conference, ahead of his Manchester City side’s League Cup semi-final against Newcastle United, turned into a global talking point. ‘Right now we kill each other for what? For what?’ he implored a room full of journalists, ostensibly there to get answers to questions about refereeing decisions and City’s inability to play well after half-time. …”
“Pep Guardiola was defiant in his press conference after Manchester City threw away a two-goal lead to draw with Spurs, but he did admit his side have ‘difficulties for many things’. They are the kind of things that mean City’s latest dropped points cannot be explained by the unusual Tottenham curse, which has seen them win just four of their 12 matches against the Londoners since the start of the 2021-22 season. If there is an underlying reason for that poor head-to-head record then it may be that Spurs, seemingly no matter how much they may be struggling, relish the opportunity to hit teams on the break, and have been able to turn over City when they have been trying to find some momentum themselves. …”
Manchester United owners Avram Glazer, Jim Ratcliffe, Joel Glazer and Malcolm Glazer on a devil’s fork held by a protestor in May 2025
Dominic Solanke scores his spectacular second goal as Spurs fight back from two down to draw with Manchester City
“… Striker Omar Bogle, who plays for Crewe Alexandra in League Two, is recalling to The Athletic the frightening moment last year when he became addicted to sleeping pills and painkillers. He initially started taking the pills after suffering a back fracture during pre-season in the summer of 2024. Bogle described the back fracture as the worst pain he’d ever felt. In agony and struggling to sleep, he turned to sleeping pills and, similarly to the painkillers he was taking, at the beginning, he found them helpful. …”
Coventry players celebrate during their Championship win over Leicester this month
“When UEFA changed the format of the Champions League, it was for nights like this. The Swiss model, now more famous than Swiss Cottage station on the London Tube network but not yet as famous as Swiss cheese, replaced the old eight groups of four model (less catchy) in 2024. The final day was pretty good last year, with 64 goals in the 18 games, but no big teams dropped out and the big will-they-won’t-they? of the night saw Paris Saint-Germain stroll past Stuttgart 4-1 to avoid an early elimination (wonder what happened to them). …”
“Anyone not plugged into football’s online discourse may have missed it, but the analytics community was rocked by a seismic event last week. FBref.com, once the great Alexandrian library of free football data, has been stripped of its advanced metrics after announcing on January 20 that Stats Perform, the company behind Opta, had informed them it was terminating their data agreement. Why did this happen? What does it mean for the availability of advanced football data, or for informed, independent football analysis? And can we enjoy expected goals anywhere else online? Here is an attempt to explain… ”
“Whatever Hansi Flick said in the Barcelona dressing room at half time, it worked wonders. Having gone 1-0 down to Copenhagen in the fourth minute, goals from Robert Lewandowski, Lamine Yamal, Raphinha and Marcus Rashford steered the Catalans into the Champions League last 16 with a 4-1 home victory on Wednesday night. It means Barca avoid having to contest a play-off to reach the knockout stages proper, after a win that moved them up into the top eight of the league phase table. For Copenhagen, a spirited and battling display ultimately ends with defeat and elimination. …”
“A 3-2 Chelsea win in Naples has sealed a top-eight finish in the Champions League for the Premier League side and eliminated their opponents from the competition, as Liam Rosenior’s promising start at the club continues. It was advantage Chelsea early on, after Enzo Fernandez’s 19th-minute penalty put the London side 1-0 up. Napoli were unhappy with the decision to penalise Juan Jesus — jumping up from his position in a defensive wall — for handball. And the home side seemingly used that sense of injustice to shake off their lethargy, with the rest of the first half a consistent stream of Napoli attacks. …”
“Newcastle and Paris Saint-Germain are both now in the Champions League knockout phase play-offs after a tense 1-1 draw at Parc des Princes. Both went into the game in the top eight teams — who go straight to the last 16 — but results elsewhere mean they will need two-legged play-offs to advance further. Vitinha put PSG ahead with a beautifully-placed finish after Ousmane Dembele had missed an early penalty given harshly against Lewis Miley for a handball. And though the hosts dominated the majority of the first half, Joe Willock headed in an equaliser just before the break with Newcastle’s first shot on target. …”
“It was four days after Christmas, and 58 years after he started supporting Bristol Rovers, when Mike Jay snapped. Rovers were at home to Barnet in League Two and in the seconds before half-time, Barnet went 1-0 up. Rovers falling behind was not news to Jay, and he got his half-time cup of tea as usual. But then he did something truly unusual. He did not re-take his seat. Instead, Jay walked up the slope, through the blue gates at the top of the Memorial Ground, and went home. …”
Scissors Kick 