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Like Manchester United, The Overlap podcast would not have become the superforce it is now without the influence of Roy Keane.

Gary Neville is swiftly becoming public enemy No 1, whether it is down to his political stance that has attracted wider and sometimes unsavoury vitriol, or the unrelenting negativity, especially in match commentary, about his boyhood club that has even turned United’s own supporters against him.

Ian Wright, Jamie Carragher and Jill Scott were always going to fail to get their voices heard among the United-heavy focus and background of famous Overlap guests. Keane, however, whenever he stands on the soapbox, has an often three-million-plus audience taking note.

One of the greatest ever to do it is in a unique position of power, and his “it was never like this in my day” trope has therefore stood the test of time and become his calling card.

A generation of United supporters, who have an unerring penchant for nostalgia more than most, have been unanimous in agreement with Keane’s criticisms, listening in while their Instagram algorithm throws up reruns of that famous night in Turin.

Keane’s management team have seized upon this grumpy media persona and created a brand that is perfect for the short soundbites needed in the modern world of dwindling attention spans.

Yet, things have come to a head recently, with Brand Keane taking a darker turn. United are anything but back to their former grandeur, but such a positive end to the season gives The Overlap chatterati less to ponder. Gradual improvement isn’t exactly a stimulant for hot debate.

And this comes at a crucial time for Neville’s media empire, who are currently trying to attract the most abrasive audience there is – Mark Goldbridge’s angry posse.

Neville has sent his vexed lieutenant into battle and picked the easiest target to keep the temperature raised. Bruno Fernandes has achieved something to be proud of. Even if you just consider who the United skipper had to usurp at the top of the most assists in a Premier League season chart, to sit above Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne is the pinnacle of an orchestrator-in-chief’s game.

Yes, United have no other silverware to celebrate, that was decided long before Michael Carrick, not one of Neville or Keane’s close-knit, spiteful pals, took the Old Trafford helm. That does not mean a very popular figure, one who is an example of how footballers should behave off the pitch, should not get the recognition the accomplishment deserves from his clearly proud teammates.

To “lie” about something Fernandes has said for the hits, something the Portuguese midfielder rightly called out this week, is something right out of the Donald Trump playbook. And it works. This was no mistake, a slip of the tongue. This was an orchestrated attack.

Read more

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Pick an easy target: whether it is immigrants in Trump’s case or a footballer universally derided for his on-field moaning from Keane. Make something that sounds believable up as if it were verbatim and pile on.

At least when Trump turns to social media to continue his tirade against his targets, it is authentic, clearly written by himself, such is the level of literacy.

Keane’s post implying Fernandes is a donkey in some profound manner would almost certainly have been created by his team, desperate to keep the Raging Roy caricature going.

The question is: is this really what Roy Keane thinks, or Raging Roy? Either way, with Goldbridge ready to keep waging the war, a new audience will sadly only want to hear from one.

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Crystal Palace were trophyless in their 120-year existence, and much like London buses, two came along at once in 2025. That felt like the pinnacle. Previously unknown emotions were unleashed — particularly the feeling of completion — which was tough for Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson to deal with, feeling empty after the ecstasy of winning the FA Cup.

“The high to the low,” Henderson confessed. “I remember three days after the FA Cup final, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I was like, ‘What has gone on here?’. I swear. I don’t know whether that was alcohol or… But I actually think it was like, I felt depressed. It was mad. But I don’t know why. I’ve never really spoken about it. It’s the emotions of it.”

Yet that was not to be the end. On Wednesday night, this already immortal group of players have another shot at history in the final of the Uefa Conference League against Rayo Vallecano.

Palace’s inner battles

“You’re engaged the week before,” Henderson continued as he set his sights on Leipzig. “Naturally, you’re thinking about it. For the last couple of weeks, you’re thinking, ‘let’s try to win the final’. It’s natural. No one speaks about it. No one speaks about it to each other. It’s just about your individual battles, isn’t it?”

This crusade across the continent has not just been about glory but justice too. Palace initially believed they would be playing Europa League football after lifting the FA Cup, but had to settle for the Conference League after breaching Uefa’s multi-club ownership rules.

That demotion that has them on the verge of unimaginable heights – 90 minutes away from a European trophy. It’s as though Palace have stepped into a carefully scripted film, with the sweetest slice of poetic justice on the cards at the Red Bull Arena: home to RB Leipzig, one of the most prevalent multi-club outfits in global football. Ironic indeed.

A European final may well be Palace’s peak. Defeat, and they return to normality after two seasons of unexpected, unbridled euphoria. Their worshipped manager, Oliver Glasner, will depart regardless of the result in Leipzig. Victory, however, would extend their golden era by another year — albeit with a new figurehead at the helm — at last claiming a place in the Europa League. Regardless, this is quite the parallel to 16 years ago, when Palace were staring down the barrel of extinction.

Despite some of the disbelief surrounding this remarkable voyage, Palace defender Maxence Lacroix was by no means shocked. In his mind, the Eagles are matching his expectations, having joined the club to aid his own pursuit of silverware.

‘I joined Palace to win trophies’

When Lacroix was asked if he could have envisaged Palace reaching a European final when he first joined the club, he was certain in his response: “I would have said yes because when I spoke with Crystal Palace, I said I want to win trophies. To be honest, some people didn’t trust that.

“I thought we would win the Carabao Cup at first, but we lost against Arsenal. Then, after we won against Millwall, it was at this moment that I said, OK, we will win the FA Cup.”

Europe has been an eye-opener for Palace. Although they have reached the final, the journey has been turbulent — particularly in the early stages. The favourites tag was a heavy burden, with Palace struggling to break teams down and take their chances.

Tensions boiled over on a toxic trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina to face Zrinjski Mostar, with supporters berating Glasner after a 1-1 draw in the first leg of the knockout play-off round. But now, those tribulations feel like a lifetime ago.

“The longer it went on, the more games we played, especially in the Conference League, the buzz came back, and then it felt like that was a distant memory,” said January arrival Brennan Johnson. “Now we’re a team that’s feeling as good as we ever have. We want to do everything we can to bring success.”

Palace have grown into the competition, with the level of the performances increasing in tandem with the increasing quality of their opponents. Performances against Fiorentina and Shakhtar Donetsk were breathtaking in the quarter and semi-finals, respectively.

Another Johnson tattoo

“When you’re a Premier League club and you get into the Conference League, it flips the expectation,” Johnson added. “You instantly become favourites. I feel like that’s something that we had to deal with. We’ve been to some countries where we’ve been massive favourites and found it difficult. But I feel like we still put big pressure on ourselves because we want to be a top team.”

Johnson, signed from Tottenham Hotspur for £35m, has struggled in a Palace shirt — failing to score in 26 appearances. But he has sublime memories of European finals, scoring the match-winner in last season’s Europa League final to end Spurs’ 17-year trophy drought. If he could emulate that success in the Conference League final, he would be visiting the tattoo parlour to get the trophy inked next to the Europa League trophy he already has on his leg.

“It would mean a lot to me,” Johnson said. “I know I’m in a fortunate position, the fact that I’m here again and being able to play in a European final. So just to hopefully be successful and to be part of this team. It’s a new club, it’s a new fan base, one that had an experience of winning last season. But I’m sure we’ll do everything to do it again.

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“I think now we’ve got a massive chance to do something special and we had that last year. The focus is kind of similar within the groups. I think the togetherness here is really special.”

If Palace are to get over the line, it will be their unity that achieves it. The group has taken every hardship in their stride this season, and their spot in the Conference League final is testament to that.

“The togetherness in this group is phenomenal,” captain Henderson adds. “All the lads are pushing in the right direction for each other. All the staff at the training ground, everyone. It’s just like a family club. We’re all pushing towards the same end goal. To deliver something on the last day of the season would be incredible, and I think it will be fully deserved.”

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West Ham United have had three managers since May 2024. The latest, Nuno Espirito Santo, joined in September 2025 and was understood to have spent much of Monday with the owners discussing the future, which most took to be his future.

Sack the coach is the standard reflex of owners seeking to distance themselves from the consequences of appointments they made. The real architect of West Ham’s demise and the focus of dissent is, of course, chairman and joint owner David Sullivan.

Nuno inherited a mess and could not clean it up. Any culpability that might attach surrounds a 10-game winless spell in the middle of the season when form fell away, plus judgement that persuaded him the gamble was worth taking in the first place.

Out-of-work coaches are like actors who convince themselves appearing in adverts for washing-up liquids are a legitimate gig. Desperation is the mother of acceptance. Of course I can fix your club Mr Sullivan. Julen Lopetegui and Graham Potter? Pah. It will be different this time.

It rarely is. Nuno is not Pep Guardiola or Luis Enrique. Neither is he the bloke who spent £40m on Maximilian Kilman, or £27m on £30-year-old Niclas Fullkrug. On a four-year contract. He was, however, the assessor who rightly judged them beyond use.

In the immediacy of relegation Nuno was the only member of the leadership to answer for the outcome and address those hurting the most, the fans. He expressed contrition, apologised for the club’s obvious failings. Not a peep from Sullivan, who left his seat with 10 minutes remaining, triggering an angry response from the fans.

An hour or so after the final whistle, the club put out a perfunctory statement. “We must face the consequences of failure with honesty, transparency and a determination to repair, focus and rebuild…We will fight with everything we have to return to the top division at the first time of asking. The hard work begins immediately.”

From this we must conclude the club was not working hard enough in the first place, were not fighting with everything they had, so why should we believe the same people are any more capable now?

Sacking the manager is pointless if the conditions that led to his failure, namely those created by the owners, remain untreated. It merely condemns the next in line to the same fate.

Nuno can be truculent and uncommunicative. Some of his selections appeared erratic, but he was working with many players he did not buy alongside a coaching staff he did not appoint.

Sullivan oversaw a £104m loss in the last financial year. The cost of dropping out of the Premier League is estimated at £200m, which will mean cashing on saleable assets like Jarrod Bowen, Crysencio Summerville and Mateus Fernandes.

For Sullivan, an exemplar of the Essex boy stereotype, the purchase of the Hammers was the ultimate play, returning to the manor after his spell in the provinces with Birmingham City.

Read more

• Kevin Garside: West Ham’s future has never felt bleaker
• Michail Antonio: The man I blame for West Ham’s demise

The move to the 2012 Olympic Stadium was his signature move, a marque London venue that projected substance and status. It has delivered neither and serves only as a symbol of the hatred the fans have for the whole West Ham enterprise under Sullivan.

A decision on Nuno is expected in the coming days. Would that any parting involved Sullivan, a man out of touch with his community, for whom ownership is less about the club and its traditions and more about the power and status that comes with Premier League ownership.

The fans have had enough, not of Nuno so much as the lifestyler who has taken them all down.

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Tottenham Hotspur will undergo a major overhaul both on and off the pitch after avoiding relegation on the final day of the Premier League season.

The club have been left shaken by back-to-back 17th-placed finishes. In Roberto De Zerbi there is a relief that they do not have to rip up the entire project and start again from scratch, now that he is tied down to a five-year contract.

However, there is expected to be at least one new appointment to the board over the summer. The inquest is also ongoing over the injury crisis that derailed Spurs for a second consecutive season and very nearly plunged them into the Championship.

After the 1-0 victory over Everton that kept his side up, De Zerbi said he had “10, 11, 12 players good enough to stay.” It will be easier to retain top earners having dodged the £200m loss that relegation would have entailed and Tottenham are hopeful of keeping a core group of players on.

Who could stay?

Joao Palhinha has underlined his importance with the winning goals in the wins over Wolves and Everton and his performance away to Aston Villa. He is still only on loan from Bayern Munich but there is an option to buy and making that deal permanent is a priority. Bringing in at least one goalkeeper and another left-wing option are also being explored.

It is hoped the most promising youngsters – Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall – will remain in north London, with Gray a particularly useful asset because of his versatility. Wilson Odobert and Xavi Simons are recovering from serious injury over the summer, while Dejan Kulusevski will also be continuing his rehabilitation and is not going to the World Cup with Sweden.

Mohammed Kudus and James Maddison are also players De Zerbi is set to build around going forward, along with Conor Gallagher – who only arrived in January – and Rodrigo Bentancur.

Who could go?

Guglielmo Vicario has attracted interest from Italy. He is fit again after a hernia operation but did not play the final games of the season as Antonin Kinsky kept his place.

There is also uncertainty over the long-term futures of Mathys Tel and Yves Bissouma. Randal Kolo Muani is not expected to make his loan move permanent after a disappointing season.

Ben Davies’ contract is up after missing the end of the season with a broken ankle. There has been some suggestion he could stay on in a part-playing capacity, also taking on another role off the pitch but talks are yet to be finalised either way.

Read more

• Kat Lucas: My day on the edge with Spurs fans: ‘Please, don’t ruin my f**king life’
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The biggest question comes at centre-back. Cristian Romero has been a long-term target of several Champions League clubs, including Atletico Madrid, and Spurs have no European football to offer next season. Romero also courted anger after flying to Argentina amid reports he would miss the final day of the season to watch his old team Belgrano – though he quickly returned to London and was at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to watch his teammates stay up.

Spurs are in the same boat with Micky van de Ven, who will attract European suitors – but there is a hesitancy to allow them both to leave in the same summer. Kevin Danso has made a huge impression but Radu Dragusin is set to move on, with a move outside of England most likely.

Richarlison’s future is not entirely clear – he missed out on Brazil’s World Cup squad and had previously considered a move away. Dominic Solanke was among those who was unlikely to stay due to his wages if Spurs went down but there is now much more prospect of him staying put.

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ETIHAD — Sir Alex Ferguson achieved The Impossible Dream down the road three years before he arrived on our shores, when, at that point in Manchester City’s chequered history, Pep Guardiola’s remit would have been Any Dream Will Do.

Back then, nobody in their wildest dreams thought anyone could come close to matching Ferguson’s accomplishments at Manchester United. In less than half the time, Guardiola has somehow eclipsed it all.

There are those, of course, who will disagree. Ferguson won 13 Premier League titles to Guardiola’s six. Building multiple trophy-winning sides separates Ferguson from most of his peers. Even if the City boss averages more titles per season.

But what really earns Guardiola the throne in the pantheon of greats, just ahead of modern-day United’s founding forefather, is the legacy he leaves at all levels of the game. Since 2008-09, Guardiola has won 467 matches in Europe’s big-five leagues – over 100 more than any other manager.

It was an emotional day at the Etihad Stadium even before Guardiola’s first sighting. His lieutenant on the pitch, Bernardo Silva, was in tears in the tunnel pre-match, ahead of the captain’s last appearance.

"If in the next years you see me, come to me and hug me, I will need it"
"I love you so much"

Pep Guardiola's farewell message for Manchester City pic.twitter.com/vGoW9GLOto

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 24, 2026

John Stones – part of Guardiola’s first City line-up 10 years and 593 games ago – will also be following his manager out the door, with the tears flowing mid-match from him, too.

A record attendance of over 60,000, now the soon-to-be-named Pep Guardiola Stand is open, could barely keep it together.

What Guardiola and his imperious footballing hierarchy have built will stand the test of time. There will be no Fergie-type decline. Players will still want to join this well-oiled unit. Recruitment will remain as well considered as it has always been. That legacy also helps Guardiola stand above all the rest, Ferguson included.

Yet, there was still an overall acceptance that things will never be the same again. How could anyone change how an established footballing superpower views itself?

The pre-match tifo kept it simple: Game-changer. History maker. City forever. As Guardiola emerged, dressed as understated as ever in his plain white t-shirt, he waved to every corner of the ground and nodded to the Catalan flags in the crowd. Just another day at the office.

After Antoine Semenyo nudged City in front, Stones actually had a farewell to forget. At fault for Ollie Watkins’ equaliser, the departing veteran missed his tackle to let Watkins in to seal all three points just after the hour mark.

Not one but two in-game guards of honour followed, to further prove the importance of pageantry over match action. Silva was inconsolable, likewise Stones. Both leaving the patch into the loving arms of a tearful Guardiola.

Nothing could match the numbers lining up to applaud at full-time. Every member of staff donned “Guardiola 10” shirts, former greats such as Fernandinho made their way onto the pitch to pay homage, in line.

Out first, Guardiola stood in the centre circle as his departing coaching staff, instrumental to City’s success, got their moment. Ilkay Gundogan and Ederson were next, returning to the club to get their acclaim, before Silva and Stones followed.

Then, eventually, everyone got the moment they had all been waiting for.

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As the montage played out, you could hear a pin drop. The man himself couldn’t bear to watch, the words of City’s most famous fans Oasis ringing true: “we’ll see things they’ll never see.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Guardiola’s final speech was interrupted by a raucous “10 more years, 10 more years Guardiola.” Something met with a fierce shake of the head. He has done more than enough.

Even the sign-off was perfect: “it’s been f****** fun.” It’s been more than that.

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STADIUM OF LIGHT – Stop the count and dump the ballot box. If anyone but Regis Le Bris wins the Premier League manager of the year award it will be a travesty.

Others may have lifted the silverware this season, but the Sunderland head coach has masterminded a campaign for the ages at the Stadium of Light. A superb win over an abject Chelsea stamped the Black Cats’ passport into the Europa League, and with it the first European campaign for 53 years for a fanbase who have grown in belief over their best season for a generation.

The scale of the achiement is stupendous. This defeat of Chelsea arrived exactly a year to the day since Le Bris helped them clamber out of the Championship via the play-offs. Four years and five days ago they beat Wycombe Wanderers to seal promotion from League One. It is some story.

Before the season they were tipped by many to go down but Le Bris – backed by the most imaginative response to promotion in recent history – has turned those fears into tears of joy. They haven’t just survived, they have thrived and torn up the narrative that the Premier League is an experience to be endured after achieving promotion.

For the wider game – and with apologies to those in Teesside and Tyneside who will be casting envious glances at this European qualification party – it is a timely and terrific reminder that the sport does not belong to the timid. In 2025 all three teams went down with Ipswich Town basically recruiting a team of Championship all-stars to make sure they bounced straight back up. There were grim warnings about the top tier becoming a closed shop.

"What a finish"

Hume gives Sunderland a deserved lead at the Stadium of Light! pic.twitter.com/vMlXnH4hDf

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 24, 2026

Sunderland went a different route, signing young talent like Noah Sadiki, Robin Roefs and Nordi Mukiele before pushing the boat out to persuade Granit Xhaka that something was stirring on Wearside. It has been an irresistible mix and put to shame the record of Newcastle and Sunday’s opponents Chelsea, who spent big but shrunk.

Sunday brought the brilliant denouement of such a daring strategy. They bullied the Blues, barely giving them a kick in a first half in which Trai Hume volleyed them deservedly in front. Malo Gusto diverted a second past Robert Sanchez – via Brian Brobbey’s shot – and even when Cole Palmer threatened to spoil the celebration they had enough.

Le Bris, who has brought all this together with the understated manner of his hero Arsene Wenger, was typically modest afterwards. It was “top of his managerial CV but of particular pride because of what it meant to the city.

“It’s an important step and shows that anything is possible in football, especially when you are working hard, representing the community and are humble,” he said.

“We suffered at times this season. We had a hard defeat a few weeks ago but we bounced back. I’m so proud – of the lads and the atmosphere.”

How the supporters partied under brilliant blue skies. Before the game fans thronged the streets around the Stadium of Light, the air thick with the acrid smell of red flare smoke.

Ahead kick-off the prize being eyed was eighth and the magical mystery tour that is the Conference League. But results and Sunderland’s own robust, resounding performance soon cleared the way for the much more serious business of the Europa League next season.

Read more

• Kevin Garside: West Ham’s future has never felt bleaker
• Daniel Storey: Tottenham have to seize this moment – I have no faith they will

It brings with it hard cash – £3.5m guaranteed for getting there plus eight group fixtures – but also some difficult choices. Sunderland know a second season in the Premier League will be difficult to navigate and now their recruitment plan must change. They will also have to comply with suffocating Uefa revenue rules.

But the club has already shown that those prepared to dream big can be rewarded. For now they should drink in one of the biggest moments in their history.

It is hard to overstate how historic it will feel in September when the group stage fixtures are drawn. Sunderland’s celebrations are thoroughly deserved.

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At the final whistle on Sunday, a strange mix of heartache, toxicity, disbelief rippled beyond the London Stadium, out to everybody connected with West Ham.

It is not just the end of 14 years in the Premier League. It is the lost years, the staggering demise since the highs of Conference League glory in 2023.

These days Michail Antonio begins each day “thanking God for getting up” after the car crash which nearly cost him his life in 2024 – but before then, he had seen West Ham’s decline in real time and up close.

West Ham fans lay the charge for that at the doors of Karren Brady and David Sullivan – Antonio does not necessarily agree.

‘Potter didn’t understand the culture’

“I just feel like Graham Potter came in and tried to change too much,” he tells The i Paper.

“As a manager, you’ve got to come in and understand the culture of the club. And I just don’t feel like he did. He came in, he got rid of all the senior pros: me, Lukasz Fabianski, Aaron Cresswell, Vladimir Coufal, Edson Alvarez – the captain of Mexico.

“Then within three, four weeks of getting rid of those players and the season starts, the first thing he says is, we have no leaders in the changing room. How can you say you’ve got no leaders in the changing rooms if you get rid of all the leaders? So it was just, I feel like it was Graham Potter, who kind of put the team in bad stead.”

There is still a rawness about the way the forward talks about West Ham, a year after being let go in the aftermath of his accident. He admits having so much “resentment against the club, the owners” that he did not know how he would feel if they failed to stay up.

“I was like, if they get relegated, it’s the only way the club’s going to feel it, the owner’s going to feel it. But now I’ve got rid of all the frustration and anger, I actually feel bad for the boys. I actually want the club to do well now – before I was just angry at everything.”

Brady was ‘ruthless’

Antonio, like many players, says he had a “good relationship with David Sullivan” and Brady. That changed when it came to contract talks following his leg break, suffered as he was hauled from the wreckage of his car.

The accident revealed two very different sides to Brady. She visited him in hospital, bringing him an eye mask. “She was a nice lady,” he insists. “Before the car crash, me and her really got along. Even after that, she was like ‘business is business but if you ever need me, you can call me… She said a couple of things that were quite hurtful towards me, but it was her talking business. When it comes to her business, she’s quite ruthless.”

He was offered a £5,000-a-week contract which stipulated he could not play for the first team and would train with the under-21s.

“If you’re going to give me a contract and I can’t play for the first team, at least give me a contract that’s more than what the under-21s are on. Her response was, ‘well they haven’t broken their leg in a massive car crash. We don’t know what the outcome is going to be’. I was just like, ‘alright’. Thank you very much.”

Days after West Ham finally released him from his contract, he was training in Manchester when he heard the news about Diogo Jota’s death.

Jota’s passing ‘shook me to my core’

“It shook my whole entire body,” he recalls. “I felt myself getting emotional. I couldn’t train. It really affected me massively because at the end of the day, I could have gone. I could have passed myself. It just shook me to my core.”

Antonio’s first encounter with death had come as a teenager. His friend Eugene was a victim of the knife crime that was prevalent in the south London neighbourhood where they grew up. Were it not for an older brother, Antonio believes he could have ended up in a gang because of his reputation for “fighting”.

“When you’re growing up in those areas, gangs have the money, they get the girls,” he says. “When I spoke to my brother, he was like ‘no, never join it, as soon as you do you’re joining a lifestyle you don’t want to be in.”

Read more

• Kevin Garside: West Ham’s future has never felt bleaker
• Special report: West Ham’s £100m abyss – and who could replace Nuno

Antonio’s roots were in Wandsworth and Tooting, but family ties meant he always wanted to play for Jamaica. He was courted by England under Gareth Southgate, the one coach he says has a reputation within the game for treating players like “humans”. But he knew he “wouldn’t be playing much”.

He ended up joining Qatari club Al-Sailiya in March, a move which coincided with the outbreak of war in the Middle East.

“On the first day, all the bombs were hitting, that was scary,” he says. “I was looking out my window and seeing fire from the rockets going past my hotel window. The hotel was shaking. But other than that, it was fine.”

There is every likelihood he will retire there, inspired to seize every opportunity by what happened in that Ferrari: “Tomorrow’s not promised to anybody.”

Michail Antonio was speaking to launch his book “Humans not Robots: when elite sport and real life collide” (Harper Collins, released June 2026)

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