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Anthony Gordon’s stunning move to Barcelona does not mean Marcus Rashford’s Catalonian dreams are in tatters.

While Barcelona are not flush with cash, The i Paper has been told they are in a much better financial position than they have been for some time. They are therefore treating both Gordon and Rashford’s deals in isolation.

The fact Barcelona are in the running for Julian Alvarez – and willing to pay a nine-figure fee – is proof of this. If they want to find the cash to make Rashford’s stay in Barcelona a permanent one, they will. The issue is how much they are willing to pay.

It is understood no such decision has been made at the highest level yet. The i Paper has been told that most key figures would prefer to keep the 28-year-old. That includes manager Hansi Flick, Rashford himself, sporting director Deco and president Joan Laporta.

But given Rashford’s age and the potential salary involved, his future is up in the air.

What is Man Utd’s stance on Rashford’s future?

Rashford is understood to retain no animosity towards Manchester United despite how things turned desperately sour before he moved on loan to Barcelona last summer.

He still retains a close relationship with some of the players, still follows all matches as any fan would, and sources close to the player insist he has not achieved all he wanted to at Old Trafford.

As things stands, Rashford is under contract until 2028. The i Paper has been told United want to move the player on, to save on his £325,000-a-week wages and garner a fee while he is a sellable asset.

The player is not against returning to his boyhood club. Sources said that he will report for pre-season training at the earliest opportunity, if no move away has materialised.

Insiders added Rashford has not spoken ill of United since leaving, and thus does not deserve to be sent to train alone or with the reserves. His social media message of thanks last week to Unai Emery, Hansi Flick and others who have helped him rekindled his career in the past few years, from what sources said was a “bleak place”, was not the dig at United many interpreted it to be.

Rashford is just very happy to have turned things around. He has not only won a place back in the England squad, but he could feasibly be a World Cup starter.

Currently, there is no panic. Barcelona have until 15 June to enact the option they have to buy Rashford for £26m that was inserted into his loan deal. There are no plans to accept any lower terms currently.

However, sources in Spain indicated Barca simply do not intend to come close to that figure, and will let the deadline pass before revisiting. Gordon’s arrival puts them in a strong position. An offer closer to £15m is more likely, if it even comes at all.

Which other clubs are interested in Rashford?

Part of the reason for United’s confidence in getting a respectable fee for an England international forward is that there are other interested clubs.

At least three Premier League clubs are understood to be monitoring the situation. One source added Newcastle could turn to Rashford as a replacement for Gordon, even if it does not fit into the overall recruitment policy of the club. Aston Villa could also re-sign the forward who spent the last half of the 2024-25 season at Villa Park.

Read more

• Pete Hall: Man Utd plan four exits to raise funds for three midfield targets
• Pete Hall: Man Utd have four good reasons for giving Michael Carrick the job

Tottenham’s recruitment policy is different to that of Newcastle’s. They are keen to add Premier League experience to their young ranks, with Rashford understood to be of interest to them.

Bayern Munich are another still assessing the situation. They are in the market for another wide option to provide competition for Michael Olise and Luis Diaz.

With no offers on the table, another season-long loan away from United cannot be ruled out, which opens Rashford up to wider options.

Rashford’s team expect to be able to provide some update one way or another in the coming weeks. They are understood to be trying to shield Rashford from all the transfer talk, with focus solely on the World Cup, where he has arrived early to begin training in the heat.

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Thank you Arsenal for reminding England of the poverty of diffidence. If they approach the World Cup as Arsenal did the Champions League final, England may not survive the group stage.

Thomas Tuchel emphasised the importance of team ethic and structure in leaving behind a cohort of stylists, including Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Morgan Gibbs-White and Adam Wharton, raising the prospect of a minimalist summer. Surely we learned at the cautious hands of Gareth Southgate the limits of setting up a team to nullify the opposition.

Mikel Arteta might argue that Arsenal were only a couple of bad penalties from toppling the best team in Europe, but that would be to overstate a method described by French sport bible L’Equipe as a double-parking of the bus. It was also a repudiation of the attacking principles inculcated at the  Barcelona academy.

There is no future for any team with only 24 per cent possession. For the 83 minutes he was on the pitch, Bukayo Saka, one of England’s signature blades, was back at full-back, where he started his career.

The issue was less technical than mental. Paris Saint-Germain are fearless and spent the greater part of the night in Arsenal’s half and entirely in their heads. Arteta played it like Southgate and would have been hailed a genius had he pulled it off. Yet the chances of doing so are significantly reduced when control is ceded so readily to opponents who cherish the ball.

PSG were PSG, concerned only with themselves. This is the lesson Arteta must learn and Tuchel heed. Success is rooted between the ears in unshakable self-belief and a sense of mission.

Yes, Luis Enrique has an exceptional front three, but none of it is inevitable.

Ousmane Dembele was erratic and peripheral at Barcelona. Imbued with confidence and purpose the same player decides matches under Enrique. Ditto Desire Doue and the mesmerising Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.

The most effective way to defuse potency is to inflict your own, as Bayern Munich did in the Champions League semi-final first leg in Paris. PSG won by the odd goal in nine yet looked vulnerable.
It might be that England are eclipsed by a better team in the coming seven weeks. Spain, France, Portugal, Argentina and Brazil are all capable of winning and none of them sit back as England did in the Euro 2024 final against a Spanish team set up not unlike PSG.

That is the message for Tuchel to absorb. The game has moved on. It rewards vibrant, attacking teams that focus on their own strengths, not the opposition’s.

What a missed opportunity Budapest was for the English champions and the English game. A clean sweep of European trophies was there to be had, reinforcing the sense of Premier League supremacy.

Read more

• Daniel Storey: I’m driving 7,200 miles to tell the story of a World Cup like no other
• Kat Lucas: Mikel Arteta has to ditch Southgate mentality to take Arsenal to next level

The message should have been “We are Arsenal, catch us if you can”. Instead Arteta opted for supine resistance, handing the initiative straight to PSG. Saka, Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard, William Saliba and Gabriel are way better than that. As is Eberechi Eze, had Arteta the courage to start him.

Southgate took England to two European Championship finals and a World Cup semi-final, falling in much the same way against Croatia, Italy and Spain. Ironically, Southgate’s best performance against a top-ranked team came in Qatar where England were the better side in a losing quarter-final against France.

Had they played like that in Moscow, London or Berlin the wait for a second major trophy might already be over – and the fear of losing, somebody else’s complex.

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Around half a million Arsenal fans are expected to watch their team’s open-bus top victory parade through north London this afternoon, celebrating the men’s side’s first Premier League win for 22 years, and the women’s team taking the first-ever Champions Cup.

Thousands of people began arriving along the 5.6-mile parade route in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Mikel Arteta’s squad began their parade at 2pm with a huge police operation deployed amid reports that a million people would descend on the wider area.

It is a bittersweet celebration, with Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhães saying their Champions League penalty shoot-out defeat on Saturday night was “painful”.

But Arsenal put their European heartbreak behind them to embark on a parade through the streets of north London to celebrate their Premier League title success.

The women’s side beat the Brazilian Corinthians team 3-2 in February, with goals from Olivia Smith, Lotte Wubben-Moy and Caitlin Foord.

Speaking after the game, captain Kim Little said the team showed “incredible” character, and would “take a lot” from winning the first Champions Cup.

“It’s great to get the win,” she said. “We showed incredible character and resilience to lose the goal right at the end and come back in extra time. The girls did great.

“It’s obviously a unique experience, it being the first Champions Cup. We’ll take a lot from winning today and getting a trophy.”

In the men’s Champions League final on Saturday, Gabriel missed the crucial spot-kick against Paris Saint-Germain as the French champions retained their crown following a 1-1 draw in Budapest.

“It’s painful, but I’m proud of this team and everything we achieved together this season,” Gabriel wrote on Instagram.

“Thank you to our incredible fans for your support every step of the way. You deserve to celebrate this journey with us and enjoy the parade today!

“See you next season!”

Arsenal had been hoping for a double celebration by following up their league success with a first Champions League trophy in the club’s 140-year history.

Kai Havertz fired them into an early lead in the Hungarian capital, but PSG equalised through Ousmane Dembele’s penalty, and Eberechi Eze and Gabriel both missed in the shoot-out.

Arteta’s crestfallen players departed their hotel a few hours after the crushing loss, with the Arsenal manager vowing to use the setback as “fuel” to carry them to glory next season.

Arteta said: “First of all, you have to go through that pain, digest it and turn it into fuel to improve and to reach a different level.

“I will take a few days with my family and then I will start the process to review what we’ve done.

“We will start to make some very important decisions if we want to reach another level.

“And we’re going to have to show that ambition because we are more than capable of doing it. But it’s going to demand us to be very, very ambitious, very fast and very smart.”

More than 500 Met Police officers have been deployed to cover the event, alongside specialist search and drone teams, and the force said there will be no trophy lift along the route as the buses will move continuously.

This comes after French police detained 480 people in Paris and 300 more in 15 other French cities following riots that broke out after Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League victory.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told reporters that 57 police officers had been wounded, most with minor injuries, after fans set off fires and vandalised shops. A small group even tried to storm a Paris police station.

Following the men’s team’s win last week, The i Paper’s chief football writer, Daniel Storey, said fans should “bask in the realisation that a superpower has been toppled,” with Arsenal rising where Manchester City had wilted.

“This has not been a vintage Premier League season, in terms of quality or entertainment,” he wrote. “But why would Arsenal give a damn about that? They built a squad that they believed could be controlled and consistent and they were proven spectacularly right. They became a mirror of the league itself and that’s why they won.”

At the final whistle in Man City’s match against Bournemouth, which meant the Gunners had taken the title, the Arsenal squad celebrated at their training ground by dancing and chanting: “Campeones, Campeones, Ole Ole Ole!” Captain Declan Rice posted on Instagram: “It’s done.”

With agencies

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BUDAPEST – How inexplicably cruel that it should have been Gabriel.

The centre-back took the decisive penalty of his own volition. He straightened, opened his body up and skied it. It will be remembered as the moment that cost Arsenal a first Champions League trophy, from a defender without whom they would never have been in contention for one in the first place.

Afterwards, Mikel Arteta pointed to fine margins. The Cristian Mosquera foul on Khvicha Kvaratskhelia that was given. The Nuno Mendes collision with Noni Madueke that was not.

The first thing to say is that Arteta’s hands were tied. He could have left a half-fit Jurrien Timber to try and contain a largely below-par Kvaratskhelia. He could have started Riccardo Calafiori at the expense of Piero Hincapie, who turned out to be Arsenal’s best player and the reason the thrashing many expected never materialised.

Arsenal have to seize the opportunity

Paris Saint-Germain are ruthless – inevitable, even. But so was Arteta’s approach. If Pep Guardiola is inclined to overthink, his old protege can be guilty of underplaying Arsenal’s hand. There is no point rewriting history now – had it been beaten semi-finalists Bayern Munich in their place, Arsenal would still not have been favourites and would probably have lined up the same way. Quite possibly with the same result. Arsenal will never know because they are still too inclined to batten down the hatches for fear of letting these moments slip away.

Arteta’s biggest challenge this summer is ensuring his side are never here again. The English champions should not be going into a showpiece like this intent on sitting in for 84 minutes after the early goal. Too often Gareth Southgate did the same with the national team, ultimately costing him silverware and immortality.

It is Arsenal’s great strength – they conceded the fewest goals in this Champions League season – but they are capable of more than nabbing 24 per cent of the ball. PSG were kept at bay for the first half but from the bench Enrique could turn to Bradley Barcola, Goncalo Ramos and Warren Zaire-Emery. Arsenal’s replacements were not game-changers. Gabriel Martinelli, Viktor Gyokeres, Eberechi Eze and Madueke all contributed but none were introduced to seize the final throes of extra time.

Had Arteta been bolder, Eze would have started over Leandro Trossard, a double-threat playing through the lines with Martin Odegaard.

Instead, Arsenal were in the position they were, unfancied underdogs against the best team in Europe, because they are content to be that way. The squad is perfectly balanced for where they want to be domestically. That Arteta had a choice between Gyokeres, his standout player in this season’s Champions League, and Kai Havertz, who for the first hour looked to have scored the decisive goal, is testament to how Arsenal have improved their depth.

If you had to pinpoint one reason why they are Premier League champions when they have fallen short so many times before, that is it. But it is also a meticulously crafted squad built specifically for containment, not Champions League glory.

What next?

Defeat in Budapest brings “pain”, Arteta said. Therein also lies opportunity. This summer will be telling as to whether Arsenal are proactive in the market, following up on interest in Julian Alvarez, Nico Williams, Morgan Rogers. Eli Junior Kroupi is another being monitored.

There is another clear distinction that sets PSG apart. They were also without two of their favoured penalty-takers by the time spot-kicks were underway but they are a group built to play on the front foot.

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Arteta confirmed that ordinarily, Bukayo Saka, Odegaard and Havertz would have been among his top five. All had been taken off by the end of extra time.

There is no use making sweeping generalisations about an inferiority complex in English football, when aside from the sample size here the Premier League is markedly stronger than Ligue 1.

An inferiority complex at Arsenal though? Quite possibly – and that is the one thing money can’t address this summer without a change in approach.

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Arsenal 1-1 Paris Saint-Germain (Havertz 6’ | Dembele pen 65’) – PSG win 4-3 on penalties

BUDAPEST – Heroes, but not history-makers. Not this time. Only heartbreak after Gabriel’s decisive miss in an agonising shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain. They came as one red army knowing that whatever happened, they would be plated in the silverware and surreal euphoria of the last fortnight. Highbury will still run red tomorrow; Hungary was one world too far for Arsenal to conquer.

After a delirious 11 days, this was only ever meant to be the bonus. It took more than an hour for the desperation which had once proven the downfall of the English champions to sink in. The moment that changed everything, Cristhian Mosquera’s tangle of limbs with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia before Ousmane Dembele’s penalty, felt avoidable but fatalistic.

The moment that might have changed even more, Noni Madueke’s own spot-kick appeal, always felt a stretch even as a red-faced Declan Rice screamed himself blue.

A closer look at that Noni Madueke penalty shout

Jack Wilshere and Martin Keown give their verdict…

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With the rush of every Gabriel clearance and Myles Lewis-Skelly interception, for those precious moments they had dreamt of Arteta-balling their way to glory. Perhaps there is an alternate version of history where they took Kai Havertz’s early strike and turned the screw. For so long they invited pressure from the most fluid team in Europe, led by the world’s best knockout coach, and for so long, it felt a plausible strategy. The massacre so many predicted never materialised – and for that, Arsenal deserve enormous credit.

There had even been the dose of good fortune which has so often evaded them when it matters. Inside six minutes, Marquinhos’ clearance had bounced awkwardly off Leandro Trossard, enough to dupe Pacho into leaving Havertz free to gallop at Matvey Safonov’s goal. Safonov, who only usurped Lucas Chevalier as PSG No 1 at the turn of the year, made no attempt to close him down and watched the ball lash into the roof of his net.

Enrique must have war-gamed what Arsenal would do if they took an early lead. It is easy to say now that all this was inevitable, but for almost 60 minutes Arsenal could not have imagined it working as well as it did. With Nuno Mendes cutting inside, the three prongs of Kvaratskhelia, Dembele and Desire Doue pressed and pressed. And just as the Parisians had been on the banks of the Danube and in the parks of Varosliget, they were swallowed in a sea of red.

In their thousands, the reigning champions had kicked off with a giant tifo featuring two muscular biceps clasped around the Champions League trophy. They will hold onto it even tighter now, and Arteta will remain in the shadows of his old friend and mentor Enrique.

Heartbreaking for Arsenal and Gabriel

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His two biggest decisions always felt like they would prove a masterstroke or a misjudgement – instead they fell somewhere in between. First, in reining in his most cavalier urges and choosing the more conservative options: Piero Hincapie ahead of Riccardo Calafiori, Mosquera over Jurrian Timber. Arteta spent as much time directing Bukayo Saka to ensure he was helping to cover the latter as he did urging him on. Mosquera had played his part until finally being undone by the 1-2 – he was lucky to avoid a second yellow before being taken off.

Crucially, though, Arteta had also recognised Havertz as the man for the big moments, when it has so often been Viktor Gyokeres in this competition all season. That one certainly paid off.

By the time penalties rolled around, a hazy evening sun had descended, drying out the rain that had begun to trickle around noon. It only added to the frenzy in a rejoicing PSG section full of billowing smoke, ablaze with pyros and requiring its own line of guards by the end. At the other of the Puskas, the ground named after Hungary’s great visionary of the 1950s, Arsenal’s supporters serenaded a group of players who have already spun their own legends. Eberechi Eze and Gabriel, who picked the two unlucky straws in the shootout, among them.

It was that sinking feeling they thought was behind them. Runners-up. Second. And yet it was precisely that familiar feeling of Arsenal’s ever bridesmaids which spurred them on to a first title in 22 years. Arteta will have them believing that they will be back.

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If Liverpool had serious doubts, Arne Slot had to go now. Different people in the same roles here have made that mistake before, backing Brendan Rodgers in 2015 only to see things fall apart even more. A new manager deserves a preseason and this summer is going to be busy. What point backing a guy you aren’t sure you want?

More pertinently, Slot had seemingly become a manager many Liverpool players didn’t want either. The defining moment of his season wasn’t the team and Slot being booed, or any milepost during the lamentable title defence, but Mo Salah’s parting shot.

The talk of “heavy metal” football was a call-to-arms not about the results – although they were indeed poor – but the style, a clear nod to Slot’s predecessor and a demand for significant change. Implicitly it read like a message to Liverpool’s hierarchy and it was liked by Florian Wirtz, Dominik Szoboszlai, Curtis Jones, Hugo Ekitike, Andy Robertson and Jeremie Frimpong.

Those doubts were entirely valid. Although there will be censure towards the players and their performance, Liverpool became more muddled as Slot’s tenure went on, not less. For most of this season, they fell into an aesthetically displeasing sludge: made individual mistakes in defence, pedestrian in possession, failing to create enough chances and missing many of the ones they did create.

Yes, Liverpool qualified for the Champions League. Some will say that should be enough to merit extended faith. But even that was rather by technicality than proven aptitude, with the extra place needed and the joint-lowest points total in Premier League history required.

That speaks to the other justification for this move: this is hardly a rushed judgement, although it may feel like it in the immediate aftermath. After Liverpool had won their first five league matches of the season, the serious concerns first appeared in September: 1-2 at Palace, 1-2 at Chelsea, 1-2 against Manchester United and 2-3 at Brentford.

The raw numbers never improved enough. From the fifth game of the season onwards, Slot’s team earned a point more than Fulham and six more than Nottingham Forest and Leeds. They earned fewer than Brentford and 17 fewer than Aston Villa. It is that last figure that is most damaging, given the spend last summer.

The away leg at Paris Saint-Germain felt like a desperate low. Slot picked an entirely new formation and failed to have a single shot on target as Liverpool were entirely outclassed in every area of the pitch, subsequently losing the home leg by the same scoreline. Suddenly they looked like Champions League also-rans, and they cannot afford that to become the norm again.

Were this likely to be a quiet summer at Anfield, Slot could potentially ride out the storm as the continuity candidate to fit the mood. That’s the opposite of their reality. The best attacker in the club’s modern history is leaving. A starting central defender is leaving.

This season has caused significant damage to remaining key players and almost all of last summer’s transfer business was unsuccessful. How can you allow the same guy to play an integral role in more revolution when supporters and players have seemingly made up their mind and you’re not fully convinced either?

This is a ruthless decision, eventually. Slot won a league title a year ago, toppling Pep Guardiola in his debut campaign through perceptive tactical control and relentless consistency. He suffered the desperately tragic loss of a senior player and has been unfortunate with injury issues suffered by the two forwards that arrived last summer. As the club posted on X: “Arne helped us deliver our 20th title and we’ll always be thankful”.

But there was far more evidence that Liverpool were in danger of drifting further than there was to suggest Slot was likely to reinvent himself and the mood this summer. The defending looked broken. The balance looked broken. Morale in the dressing room looked broken and the spirit of supporters was quickly breaking too.

A sacking need not be a damnation of an entire reputation, but Slot was given eight months to offer proof that he could build a successful squad as successfully as he inherited one. The only obvious development was his best attacker becoming mutinous and other players deciding that they needed to leave. That’s no case for keeping your job.

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BUDAPEST — In the run-up to the Champions League final you will hear a lot about how Luis Enrique transformed Paris Saint-Germain from a gaggle of Galacticos to the best team in Europe.

Mikel Arteta can make a similar claim. Perhaps not aesthetically, but the Arsenal squad he took over – Nicolas Pepe, Shkodran Mustafi, David Luiz, Matteo Guendouzi –are unrecognisable from the current group.

It does not put them anywhere close to favourites in Budapest- but it is unwise to write Arsenal off, even if Enrique has won 11 of the 12 finals he has contested. You could fairly rudimentarily divide their season into three parts: pre-Christmas, post-New Year and post-defeat to Manchester City on 19 April. Since then Arteta has locked into an approach that won them the Premier League – and which has him “fully convinced” they can push PSG all the way.

Arteta’s four headaches

Who partners Rice?

Arsenal cannot be entirely sure what form Enrique’s midfield will take. It could contain Lucas Beraldo, or he could be deployed at right-back or centre-back. If Martin Zubimendi were to partner Declan Rice, it would be harder to pinpoint where their own creativity was going to come from. Instead Arteta feels likelier to stick with Myles Lewis-Skelly, who has excelled since his first start as a midfielder in the 3-0 win over Fulham earlier this month.

How to stop Kvaratskhelia

Ben White is a loss but his replacement could be better-suited 1v1 against Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who already has 10 goals and six assists in this season’s competition. The question is whether Jurrien Timber starts having been a doubt for the final. Arteta could opt for Cristhian Mosquera instead – but Timber is a risk worth taking if he is fit, despite not featuring since 14 March.

Gyokeres vs Havertz

In the biggest moments, Arteta has at times used Kai Havertz as the focal point of the front three, but there is an obvious argument for why Viktor Gyokeres could be best utilised against PSG. Gabriel Martinelli is the only Arsenal player with more goals in Europe this season and all of the Brazilian’s came in the league phase.

One of Arsenal’s most effective strategies against Atletico Madrid was to use David Raya to get the ball up quickly to Gyokeres, who ran 6.5 miles in the semi-final second leg. Marquinhos is also liable to follow the striker when he roams into the wide areas and drops into a deeper role, creating more space to be exploited by Martin Odegaard.

The left

At left-back there is the more adventurous option in Riccardo Calafiori over Piero Hincapie, combining with either Eberechi Eze or Leandro Trossard. Eze impressed sufficiently during Odegaard’s recent absence that Arteta chose to keep deploying them both, but Trossard is a more likely starter, with Eze on for the final half-hour. The five teams who beat PSG in Ligue 1 did so because for the most part, they were able to contain Ousmane Dembele – not easy to do with PSG’s notorious pressing.

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