The Southampton role marks Juric’s first outside of Italy, and he joins just one month after being sacked by Roma – a stint that lasted all of 12 matches.
The Croatian previously managed two sides he used to play for in Crotone and Genoa, while his longest stint was at Torino for three seasons from 2021 to 2024.
More to follow.
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Aston Villa 2-1 Manchester City (Duran 16′, Rogers 65′ | Foden 90+3′)
VILLA PARK — It was the most frequent sight here in the first half: Jack Grealish plucking the ball out of the air down the left wing for Manchester City, who suffered their ninth defeat in 12.
The results were varied, like watching a live experiment from a scientist desperately short of ideas – Pep Guardiola making Grealish one of six City changes from the defeat to Manchester United.
Guardiola was perhaps hoping emotion could play a part, with Grealish making his first start at Aston Villa since leaving his boyhood club in 2021.
It didn’t pay off. More often than not the first touch was perfect, but thereafter Grealish was proving a microcosm of City’s run overall. Plenty of the ball, and no idea what to do with it.
The good was a cross that Josko Gvardiol arguably could have done better with, the bad was the backward passes, and the downright ugly was a shot so bad it went out for a throw-in.
“You’re not super anymore,” the home crowd sang, jeering Grealish with his every touch.
While the winger admirably wore a wry smile for much of the opening half, there were signs of his frustration after the half-time whistle sounded when he protested with referee Peter Bankes and Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez saw a chance to ruffle his former teammate’s feathers.
It was a minor scuffle that only earned Martinez a booking – no surprise given he rushed over to cause nothing but bother – but it was a chance to get in Grealish’s head.
Matty Cash had been getting into Grealish all half too, eventually earning a booking after a third heavy tackle, and with City heading in without a goal despite having the majority of the ball, it was job half-done for Villa.
Then along came Kyle Walker. Arguably made the scapegoat these past few weeks, suddenly deemed too old and too slow, City’s club captain had appeared nonplussed by the fact he was dropped, dressed more like a spectator than a player eager to come on when warming up with his fellow substitutes before the match.
Kyle Walker in the coat and woolly hat during the warm-up (Photo: Michael Hincks)
Nevertheless, he was the first port of call for Guardiola from the bench, replacing the returning John Stones for the second half.
City had operated with a new-look back four, Stones starting alongside Manuel Akanji, Rico Lewis and Gvardiol in defence for the first time this season, mainly down to the injury absence of Ruben Dias.
The second-half quartet were not well acquainted either, but really this wasn’t the main issue and in truth nor was Grealish’s output.
Around Grealish, City offered little to nothing. Bernardo Silva was a passenger, while Phil Foden was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, going closest for City in the first half and scoring a late consolation only due to a defensive slip. “The last one or two games, he has been better,” Guardiola said afterwards. “Most of the players have had problems.”
That includes Erling Haaland. One goal in six games is a paltry amount by his standards. He didn’t have a single touch in Villa’s box in the first half, one of just three City outfield players in that regard, and the second half wasn’t proving promising either. “Without him we would be even worse,” Guardiola reflected, while Haaland said himself: “It’s not good enough from me.”
It was though the 64th minute that summed up Grealish’s and City’s afternoon. He had seen less of the ball after the break, but when he did on this occasion, his cross went straight into the side netting – not even a minute later, Villa scored their second.
Not that it was Grealish’s fault. Once again City’s defence had more pockets than a pair of cargos, with John McGinn finding Morgan Rogers, who punished the visitors with a ruthless finish as Walker barely attempted to close him down or block the shot.
This was the lack of desire that City had showed all match, so too the gaps Villa were not offering up themselves. As chants of “you’re just a s— Morgan Rogers” were directed at their former captain, Grealish’s display ultimately typified his whole time at City.
In Rogers, Villa have now moved on, meaning a move back is effectively off the cards despite rumours.
Rogers, by the way, cost Villa an initial £8m – and only as much as £16m if all add-ons are met – and spent four years at City without playing a game.
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Legendary commentator Clive Tyldesley is set to broadcast to the UK for the very last time next week.
Tyldesley, 70, will provide the soundtrack for Brighton vs Brentford on Amazon Prime Video, but the e-commerce giant is dropping Premier League coverage in 2025, meaning he will be without a UK-facing job.
Since leaving ITV this summer, where he had been for more than two decades, Tyldesley has continued to work for CBS, commentating on the Champions League alongside former England goalkeeper Rob Green for the US audience watching on Paramount+.
Tyldesley would happily keep covering the Premier League for another broadcaster as Amazon drops out, but with no offer on the table he believes Boxing Day and 27 December will be his last to be aired in the UK.
“I’ve realised a lot of my ambitions, and I’ve been really, really lucky. And I’m very grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had,” Tyldesley tells The i Paper.
“You’ll never hear ‘I’ve had the best times and it’s time for me to go’, until I feel it’s time for me to go, and I don’t. I really feel as if I can still do the job as well probably as anybody out there.”
Tyldesley stepped down from a role doing Premier League radio commentaries for talkSPORT because he felt uncomfortable with having to read out on-air betting advertisements, but says he would have accepted other offers if they had come in. He insists he is not retiring though, and still has two more years on his contract with CBS.
“If you look at the host broadcaster, whether it’s Sky or TNT, then add on Match of the Day, Premier League productions, then NBC would probably have a commentator at certain games, Five Live and talkSPORT certainly would, there’s at least 20 commentators working every weekend on mainstream coverage of Premier League football,” he adds.
“I may not be the best, but I think I’m in the top 20!
“It’s a competitive business. It’s like being selected for a football team and I am probably that aging midfield player now who needs somebody to do a bit of the running for him. I’m 70, and there may come a time when I don’t see as clearly or think as sharply as I once did, but I don’t think that time has arrived as yet.
“I’m not somebody who says ‘you’ve got to be careful what you say these days’. Yeah, well, you should be, if you’re broadcasting to millions of people! You don’t want to offend anybody.
“There are certain responsibilities that go with communication, that you’ve got to embrace. Those responsibilities change, and I think that I’m across all of that. I watch, I think, as much football as anybody.”
Having worked for ITV, the majority of Tyldesley’s exposure to a UK audience has been in the Champions League, where he has voiced some of the greatest moments in European football history, perhaps most memorably Manchester United’s famous comeback against Bayern Munich in the 1999 final, one of more than 40 European Cup finals he has worked on.
He was replaced as ITV’s lead commentator by Sam Matterface (“I think he’s a good commentator,” Tyldesley is quick to note) in 2020, but continued to work for the company until Euro 2024, where Germany vs Denmark was his last game.
“It is a little disconcerting that these Premier League games that I do for Amazon Prime are the only Premier League games I’ve ever done on [live UK] television.
“My dear old Mum died earlier this year, and she used to say, ‘Why are you not on anymore?’ and I would say ‘I am actually Mum you just can’t access me any more!'”
A Clive double
Tele addicts looking for post-Christmas entertainment will have a choice on Friday 27 December: Clive Tyldesley or Clive Tyldesley.
On BBC Two, Tyldesley can be seen in bright blue Christmas jumper representing Nottingham on a Christmas special of University Challenge up against Leeds Trinity. That is an 8.30pm start, but he will have been on duty for an hour already by then, commentating live for Amazon Prime Video at the Amex Stadium alongside his most famous partner-in-crime Andy Townsend.
Townsend (right) has been Tyldesley’s most regular co-commentator (Photo: Getty)
There is a kind of irony that it will be Brighton and Brentford, both clubs owned by men who made their fortune in sports gambling, will be the teams for Tyldesley’s farewell, given his stance on betting in football and work as an ambassador for the charity GambleAware.
But Tyldesley does not want to insert himself into the story. The words of his great mentor Reg Gutteridge, the long-time boxing commentator for ITV who died in 2009, still ring in his ears.
“He taught me 95% of what I know about communication, let alone sports commentary. Reg would say to me that a goal is unique and it deserves its own soundtrack,” Tyldesley says from his home near Reading.
“So the ‘incredible, amazing, fantastic’ is not enough for a very singular, unique, memorable goal. You’ve got to come up with something which is peculiar and distinctive and belongs to that moment, and people with memories of that moment, which is quite a challenge in an unscripted area.
“I commentate differently to Peter Drury, but what I really like is how hard he tries to use the language. He uses it in a different way to me, but I really respect the fact that he tries to find words which are different from all the other words.”
Both Drury and Tyldesley are voices that resonate with English football fans of almost any age.
Tyldesley adds: “The most lovely thing is when people say, Oh, when that goal was scored, I’ll never forget what you said’, those Champions League finals and things, or Rooney ‘remember the name’. It’s lovely when people say that. It is the biggest compliment, and that’s the one that makes you blush.
“But I couldn’t have said them, unless Sheringham and Solskjaer stuck the damn things in the net, unless Gerrard had headed it in the net, unless Rooney had scored. They’re the performers. My job, my challenge, is just to try to provide a soundtrack fitting of these extraordinary moments of sporting theatre that these wondrous athletes produced for us and become almost timeline moments in our lives, of where we were, who we were with, what we did.”
‘And Solskjaer has won it!’ (Photo: Getty)
He is clearly still a romantic about football, willing to make the kinds of sacrifices he has made all his career: Tyldesley will spend Christmas night in a hotel room in Manchester ahead of Man City vs Everton on Boxing Day, his penultimate appointment for Amazon, and the reverse of a fixture he did a day later in 2023.
Not that he is keeping track, he assures me.
“I don’t want to turn this into the Clive Tyldesley world tour,” he says, hoping to avoid any sort of farewell tribute. “Motty [John Motson, former BBC commentator] was always very good at suddenly discovering this was the 1,000th game that he’d ever commentated on or something.
“I think the perfect way to end something is just as if it’s not the end, really, and tomorrow, somebody else will be doing this job, and that’s fine.”
The dying art of professional commentary?
Tyldesley clearly still cares about the game and the way it is presented. In an hour-long conversation, we forensically dissect the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards, the changing nature sports writing and the pressures on journalism (“football commentary *is* a piece of journalism”) as a whole. Even in football commentary, there is an almost universal need for its exponents to do more and faster.
“I do try to drive a message of trying to keep up the standards because there are so many thousands of people that want to do what we’re doing,” he says.
“We owe it to the opportunity that we’ve been given to make this rather bizarre and stupid way of making a living as good as it can possibly be, and to give it some thought, attention and time.”
Although Manchester City on Thursday and Brighton on Friday may sound the like dream, Tyldesley would rather not be cramming two games into two days, although acknowledges that the younger breed of commentator cannot afford to turn down work or opportunity.
“I speak to young commentators who get no feedback. It’s just another game. On to the next match. ‘Where are you tomorrow?’ is something you hear in press rooms.
“You should be at home getting ready for the next game!
“We’re lucky with these Prime games that most of the people that are working with the producers, the editors, the commissioners at Sunset and Vine, do want to capture the story. And they do put out presenters and pundits for each game, studios and pitchside at each match.
“I’ve been feel really privileged to have worked on these Premier League games the last four years that they’ve had them, because I think they do it properly.
“Maybe it’s just fanciful for me to think that other broadcasters who are churning out material on an almost hourly basis have got the time and the opportunity to do the same.”
Tyldesley remains as self-critical as he is of the wider trends. He has listened back both Leicester vs West Ham and Newcastle vs Liverpool, his two Amazon games earlier this month, not to assess the game but analyse his own performance.
“I think I was a bit rusty the first night at Leicester. I was really poor on the El Khannouss goal – well maybe I wasn’t poor – I wasn’t sure who’d scored it, so I waited. It wasn’t one of those Rooney or Shearer moments where I shouted out the name as it went in,” Tyldesley says.
“In a way, it’s good commentary: if you’re not sure, don’t go. Wait. But I was angry with myself afterwards that in the moment I didn’t nail it.”
Nearly half a century in, and Tyldesley is still honing his craft.
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His days begin at 6am and end late, the drive to and from his temporary digs to Hull City’s Cottingham training ground cloaked in darkness.
Early mornings are “analysis, analysis, analysis” before he and his backroom staff get to the real business of delivering punchy training sessions with the goal of getting them to buy into his aggressive, quick and front-foot attacking philosophy.
With Hull sitting bottom of the Championship, there is a thudding sense of urgency about his work.
Despite a defeat to Coventry City that laid bare the size of the challenge facing him since leaving Reading, he is enthused by what lies ahead.
“This group of players has given me everything from day one,” he tells The i Paper.
“Even with the Coventry game, they still fought. 90 per cent of my experiences since joining have been positive.”
One look at his CV suggests Selles deserves this opportunity.
He has taken the road less travelled to managing in the Championship, starting as an Under-11s coach in Valencia who used to sneak into Rafa Benitez’s training sessions and take copious notes.
From there he travelled to Russia, Azerbaijan, Greece and Denmark, even working as an assistant fitness coach, before being headhunted by Southampton’s data gurus to join Ralph Hassenhuttl’s backroom staff after being identified as one of Europe’s most promising young coaches.
Hull are currently bottom of the Championship (Photo: Getty)
After a brief stint as interim manager at St Mary’s, promoted after the divisive Nathan Jones departed, he moved to Reading, keeping the team in League One despite a points deduction and leading them into promotion contention this season despite ongoing, damaging off-field issues.
A case in point: in Berkshire he, along with club executives, forfeited wages for fortnight in solidarity with non-playing staff who had not been paid.
“I’m here because of that experience,” he says.
“I learned a lot, it made me a better coach and person. Those experiences were very painful in the moment but you learn to cope with different levels of stress and how to get the very best not only from yourself but also the very best from everyone.
“It was a difficult decision, emotionally, to leave. I was there one and a half years but it feels like five years because of the experiences we had together.
“We were arriving at the point where they had a team they could recognise and everything was going in the direction where we keep the club stable but I also felt it was the peak of the things we could achieve with the club because of the situation not related to football.”
Headhunted by Hull earlier this month, there is no escaping the fact he has taken over a side who are in a mess.
Botched summer recruitment overseen by Tim Walter – whose brand of “heart attack” football has left the Tigers flatlining in the Championship’s relegation zone – has also raised questions about the vision of Turkish owner Acun Ilicali, who has got through four managers in a little over two years.
In first meetings Selles says the pair “spoke the same language”.
He dismisses concerns about the club’s managerial turnover, suggesting “a year in the job is about the average in the Championship”.
“We got on well, we sat and talked and agreed on lots of things,” he says.
“I have a really positive feeling about the relationship moving forward and for the future of Hull we are aligned, we want to create something powerful.
“If we can build the proper foundation, build a good platform, then the ambitions for the club are there. But now it’s a bit beside the point to talk about anything that isn’t just avoiding relegation. Everything is focused on getting out of the relegation zone.”
It has barely been a fortnight but Selles’ diagnosis of the Hull squad is not that it lacks quality or ability.
Instead he senses a hesitancy that is unhealthy, which is why he has been hammering home to his new players – in a twist on the famous Al Pacino pre-game team talk in American football film Any Given Sunday – that they have to start “fighting for the inches”.
“What we need to be conscious of is that things aren’t just going to happen,” he says.
“We need to make them happen. We need to compete for the moments because the moments aren’t just going to be there and we are just going to be able to score. We need to compete for every inch and compete in every situation we’re in.
“We need to create a habit of competitiveness and then through that the results will arrive. It can’t be ‘let’s see what happens’, we need to make things happen. In the position we’re in, nobody is going to give us anything.”
Selles previously managed Southampton and Reading (Photo: Getty)
It is a message that he believes everyone connected to the club needs to heed. He includes club staff and the supporters in his rallying cry.
“From the fans’ perspective needing to just give that extra ten minutes of being extra loud or whatever it is in the game, from the club giving that extra support to the players, from us giving that extra quality that the situation demands.
“We need to go for higher standards, that counts for everyone.”
When Hull did their due diligence on Selles, what came back was a coach whose sharp, engaging work on the training ground has energised his players.
But they are also getting a manager who is screeching an 180 degree turn from what Walter turned out to be: obsessed with build up with little end product.
“We want to have a team that want to be very vertical, very aggressive and attacking,” Selles says of his philosophy.
“The word is vertical. We want to have this breaking lines mentality where we can put our opponent on the back foot and we can arrive into the final third organised but as quick a possible. Then we want to be very aggressive defensively.
“The Watford game was a little bit of an example of what we want. We just need to improve on those moments but we should be a team that are very difficult to play against but can create chances in a relatively quick way.
“We need to transform the quality [we have] into competitiveness, that is the key.”
Hull intend to add to that “quality” in January and Selles reveals that meetings with sporting director Jared Dublin and the club’s recruitment team have already taken place.
But he plays down talk of an overhaul similar to 12 months ago, when the Tigers rolled the promotion dice by recruiting, among others, Fabio Carvalho on loan from Liverpool in an attempt to secure a top six finish.
“Obviously we have the opportunity to strengthen the team in January if we think we can strengthen it but when we talk about what we have in the team, our attitude is that the players we have are the best players in the world,” he says.
“Our focus is that we’re in contact with Jared and the recruitment department to try and strengthen the team and see what key positions we have.
“But in our experience those players need to be a very, very specific profile.
“We can’t start taking a few players or making a few changes because realistically I think we have enough here.
“It should be two or three who really help us to make an impact in the team.”
Their daunting festive programme kicks off against Swansea City on Saturday before they play three of the teams in the top six over Christmas.
It is a baptism of fire for Selles but he is undaunted.
“We just need one good performance, three points and then comes the relief,” he says.
“But we need to work hard for it, things don’t just happen.”
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Arsenal face a monumental set of challenges to expand the Emirates and make their stadium one of the largest in the Premier League – including installing an entirely new roof – but leading architects insist “it’s all possible”.
Co-chairman Josh Kroenke lit a match under fan hopes when he revealed that internal discussions are taking place.
Stadium size and maximising ticket sales and matchday revenues are becoming increasingly important as clubs operate within tight financial margins.
Arsenal also want to capitalise on the success of Mikel Arteta returning the club to regular Premier League title-challengers and Champions League mainstays.
One ambitious option under discussion is adding 20,000 seats, but that means “you’re essentially adding another small stadium on top of it”, Nick Tyrer, an associate director at architects BDP Pattern and the lead designer on Everton’s new Bramley-Moore Dock stadium, tells The i Paper.
And “there’s no end of challenges to making the Emirates one of the biggest stadiums in the country”, his colleague Jon-Scott Kohli, BDP architect director, says.
The logistics of expanding a stadium, that was already a clever feat of architectural design when it was fitted into a tightly congested area of central London, by 30 per cent are complex.
“It’s efficient, everything fits together like a nice puzzle,” Tyrer says. “It’s impressive what they were able to do on that tight site, but the problem with a puzzle that fits nicely together is as soon as you want to make big changes to it, it’s difficult.
“One of the big challenges is there’s an elegant roof that is supported in I think eight places. The whole roof sits on those eight points and if you want to do any kind of expansion you need to remove the structure that’s blocking you, but the only way you can do that is taking the roof off and putting a new wider roof on.”
A roof tends to be the most expensive part of any stadium construction costs, Tyrer explains, and while there are various architectural tricks to upgrade it the most cost-effective decision would probably be to build a new one.
“If it does involve removing and replacing that, say it’s a new roof, you’re building a new roof of an 80,000-capacity stadium,” Tyrer adds. “You’re talking about the realm of a new project, a new stadium from that perspective.”
Technology exists to jack up the existing roof while new seats are added, but the problem remains that where the existing columns are will block the views of new seats.
A roof tends to be the most expensive part of any stadium construction costs (Photo: Getty)
And Arsenal might have to borrow an idea from their north London rivals to make it work. Cable-net, gravity-stressed tension rings hold many modern stadium roofs in place.
“They work a bit like a bicycle wheel,” explains Kohli. “But whereas the bicycle wheel has all the spokes converging at the centre, if you can imagine a ring and all the spokes coming into the ring.”
Tyrer adds: “It’s the same style roof that Tottenham has. It’s primarily cables that are providing the primary structural element, as opposed to your trusses and other things.”
The magnitude of that job would mean an expansion taking over a year.
And Arsenal will also have to take into consideration the fact the current Emirates roof is designed to fit within height restrictions imposed by planning authorities when it was built. They would have to justify raising the height.
The Emirates was the second biggest stadium in the Premier League when it was opened in July 2006. It cost £390m. But it has since been overtaken by Tottenham building a £1.2bn new ground, West Ham moving into the London Stadium and Liverpool expanding Anfield to 61,276.
They will slip further down the capacity table when Manchester City complete an expansion of the Etihad. Newcastle United and Chelsea are exploring expansions or building new homes.
Transforming the Emirates into an 80,000-seater would overtake Manchester United’s Premier League-leading current Old Trafford capacity. It can accommodate 74,310 fans, although plans are being drawn for either expanding the existing site or building a new stadium altogether.
Nonetheless, based on current figures it would place an expanded Emirates behind only Wembley, the 90,000-capacity national football stadium, and Twickenham, the 82,000-seat home of the national rugby team.
If Arsenal do go down the route of increasing capacity, the cost would likely run into “hundreds of millions”, Kohli says. “You’re almost building another stadium, but you’re building it in the air, so you’ve got all the structure and accommodation that’s going to get you there, plus whatever the council requires for transport.”
It took a great deal of deal-making with local authorities to make the Emirates happen. One of the most considerable outlays on local infrastructure was agreeing to pay for a new £60m recycling centre on Lough Road.
Arsenal committed to invest £1m in local sports facilities after deciding against initial plans to build a club sports centre. The club also built 3,000 homes in the area, claiming 40 per cent were affordable housing.
Arsenal had also agreed to pay for upgrades to Holloway Road and Drayton Park stations, totalling £7.6m, but the overall work required proved too costly and Transport for London instead agreed to pay for the reconstruction of other stations.
Unable to facilitate away travel of that many people, Holloway Road and Drayton Park became exit only after games on matchdays. That may need revisiting under new plans.
The cost of expanding Emirates Stadium could run into the hundreds of millions (Photo: PA)
Kohli brings up a 3D model of the stadium and surrounding area and points to the existing bridges over the railway lines that pin the stadium in on two sides, and the roads that deliver fans into and out of the stadium.
“In real terms we’re talking about increasing the stadium capacity by a third, so all of these bridges and exits down these streets will be X metres wide, we need a third of that again to get people out of the stadium safely,” Kohli says.
“You’re looking at new bridges and platforms across the rail areas. When you start to take into account you’re doing really substantial structural work and you’re basically building new bridges and pieces of city to get the connection and you’re upgrading transport infrastructure and whatever else the council requires of you because you’ve made your stadium that much taller, this is not a small project.
“An expansion like that isn’t just about making the stadium bigger it’s about changing the whole neighbourhood to be able to handle that influx of people. There’s a lot of money poured into upgrading the Tube facilities when the stadium was opened, so you can expect that kind of investment again in what’s there already.”
It is believed that Arsenal will start by pricing and making a business case for the most ambitious options – the 20,000 expansion representing the height of those – and more likely land somewhere in-between.
Arsenal have a waiting list over 100,000 for season tickets, but most clubs are moving away from substantially increasing season ticket availability when more seats are installed.
Individual match tickets are sold at a much higher price and the fans who buy them tend to spend more money, on merchandise, food and drink, than regular match-goers.
And the hospitality areas at the Emirates are ripe for expansion, the architects say.
“What’s changed in the last 20 years is hospitality trends,” Tyrer says. “Changing demographics, how people want to spend money.
“A move away from traditional hospitality. That’s something quite ingrained in the existing stadium. The full middle tier of lounges and the full ring of boxes at the back. Arsenal are capitalising on being in central London, a lot of corporate clients willing to come. Its excellent for revenue.
“That’s the bit where potentially the club could get the most return from some form of expansion. Something Tottenham does well, something we’re doing on Everton’s new stadium: changing how you approach the experiences and spaces.
“It might be you could do that at the Emirates in a simple way. Sports venues are becoming more about 365, make uses of it every working day rather than once a fortnight. Expanding the stadium more from an accommodation perspective and not from a capacity perspective.
“You could introduce different experiences, lounges, even the concourse, allowing them to break away from the system they currently have and move towards something a bit more dynamic and flexible.”
Kohli adds: “What we learned working with Everton, the drive has been a lot more sophisticated. One time you had general admission seats, a corporate box and maybe an extra lounge with the director’s box. Two or three options about how you might experience the game.
“Now there’s a realisation that stadiums are competing with High Street experiences – bars and restaurants, clubs, other event venues. There’s a real drive to create those types of experiences in stadiums.
“Everyone is different. Some people want to sit in the same seat with the same people, as they have done for 10 years. There are others who want to come once a year and splash out for their birthday and bring all their mates. The best stadiums are catering for those and everything in between.
“That seems a better return on investment for Arsenal to think about their stadium in that way. Maybe they don’t need so many of these types of seats but to work with what they’ve got. They could probably drive better revenue and fan experience by changing those types of things without needing to get to the next size of stadium.”
But if Arsenal do want to go all out and significantly expand capacity, it is unlikely anything will stop them.
“Time, money and political will is what you need,” Kohli says. “If they’ve got all three of those then absolutely.”
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It’s only the “Mickey Mouse Cup” once you’re out, so the running joke among English football fans goes.
Gooners were preparing to say exactly that about the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night when trailing Crystal Palace, but Gabriel Jesus had other ideas – with a helping hand from Arsenal’s vital duo – when his hat-trick kept their hopes of a first trophy for five years alive.
And couldn’t they do with it, too. Arsenal have forgotten what silverware feels like to the touch, with Martin Odegaard yet to lift a trophy of significance as Arsenal captain.
Mikel Arteta may therefore ditch the changes by the time the semi-final first leg comes around in January.
That was clearly even the case as the night progressed against Palace, with Odegaard and William Saliba both brought on at half-time as Arsenal trailed.
Unsurprisingly, it was Odegaard who unlocked Palace’s defence, providing two assists as fellow substitute Bukayo Saka set up the other for Jesus.
They have other fish to fry, but the Arsenal side that finished this match is probably closer to the XI that will start the semis.
We will find out who they face for a place in the final on Thursday night after Tottenham’s match with Manchester United, but with Manchester City out the Carabao Cup presents Arsenal with a real opportunity of winning a second trophy under Arteta.
For a side who are the record 14-time FA Cup winners, their paltry League Cup haul of two really is surprising, the last coming in 1993.
Arsenal brought on their big-hitters to see off Crystal Palace (Photo: AP)
Add to that their soon-to-be 21-year Premier League wait (as if they need reminding) and it has been just the one FA Cup triumph under Arteta – and no we’re not counting the two Community Shield wins.
This means the Spaniard should take another leaf from the book of Pep Guardiola, who saw the Carabao Cup as a chance to get his City players used to the big stage and that walk up the Wembley steps.
Now three games away themselves, and two from a date at Wembley, Arsenal should follow Newcastle’s determined footsteps and do everything they can to win the Carabao Cup. Seriously.
Arteta can ill-afford his tenure to be remembered by one FA Cup triumph almost half a decade ago – and despite going backwards in the league this season, a cup win could yet be a springboard.
How Arsenal reached Carabao Cup semi-finals
By Jon West
Hat-trick hero Jesus stepped up when Arsenal needed him to make sure Arteta’s sixth year as Arsenal manager will feature a Carabao Cup semi-final.
Brazil striker Jesus has become a fringe-man at the Emirates in recent months, partly through fitness issues and partly because others have excelled.
But with Palace leading through Jean-Philippe Mateta’s early cashing in of a dreadful Jakub Kiwior error Jesus conjured up a trio of second-half reminders that he can finish.
That had certainly been the problem in the Premier League on Saturday, when Everton were somehow allowed to escape with a point from a 0-0 draw but despite ex-Gunner Eddie Nketiah pulling one back late on it is Arsenal’s name, not Palace’s, that goes into tonight’s last four draw.
Arteta, who succeeded Unai Emery on 20 December 20 2019, allowed eight of Saturday’s under-achievers time off, although all but Declan Rice were made to begin on the bench.
Palace opted to stick with a huge majority of the side that won 3-1 at Brighton on Sunday. Daniel Munoz was suspended so 18-year-old Caleb Kporha came in at right wing-back for his first Eagles start.
It took just over three minutes for the re-jigged Arsenal line-up to be utterly undone from goalkeeper Dean Henderson’s long punt downfield.
It was aimed at Mateta, who seemed to accept that Kiwior would get there first and head it away. The Frenchman must have been both surprised and delighted therefore to find himself running towards goal instead. Mateta held off the desperately back-tracking Pole and slotted calmly across David Raya from the left of the box.
Kiwior had been nudged, slightly by Mateta’s elbow, but his agent can nevertheless expect a busy January – his Gunners career may have effectively ended last night.
The setback stung Arsenal into action – Jefferson Lerma was required to clear a corner off the line before Leandro Trossard, set up by Raheem Sterling, blazed a decent chance over.
Eagle tails were still very much up however and Ismaila Sarr, capitalising on Jesus’ careless touch, strode forward to force Raya into a diving save. Eberechi Eze was next to have a go – from inside his own half from a free-kick – but cleared crossbar as well as Raya.
Henderson was required to tip over Raheem Sterling’s free-kick but Mikel Merino’s header from the corner dropped wide of the far post – and the half ended with Trossard beating challengers with a superb turn only for the cross to go out for a throw.
Changes were inevitable so on came Odegaard and Saliba for Ethan Nwaneri and Thomas Partey. Palace swapped Kporha, who had been booked for a foul on Trossard, for Nathaniel Clyne.
Sterling should have levelled within five minutes when Kieran Tierney, making a first Gunners start since 2023, picked him out unmarked at the back post. Henderson did well to parry – but the on-loan Chelsea man scooped the rebound on to the bar.
Momentum had shifted however and Jesus levelled in the 54th minute. The Brazil striker, played in by Odegaard, evaded Trevoh Chalabah’s lunge and sent a precision dink over Henderson.
Palace sent on Nketiah just before the hour mark before Henderson denied Jesus with his legs.
Arsenal swapped Sterling for Saka for the last 20 minutes after Tierney’s return from injury ended prematurely – Palace were already hanging on.
Henderson was proving difficult to get past however, with Merino firing at the England man, but it was Jesus’ night. Saka slipped him in – he was just onside, it seemed – and having taken a quick look up, the former Manchester City man drilled across Henderson and into the far corner.
The match ball belonged to Jesus in the 81st minute when Palace were caught pushing up. Odegaard sent him sprinting through for another emphatic finish.
Nketiah headed home to make it 3-2 shortly after but Arsenal held firm to move closer to their first silverware since Arteta’s first season.
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Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. The best way to follow his journey is by subscribing here.
Before every Manchester City men’s and women’s weekend home game, under the bridge next to the Asda superstore that sits adjacent to the Etihad Stadium and the Joie Stadium, a group of people erect a gazebo and stand, in all weathers, to collect food donations from football supporters on their way to the game.
MCFC Fans Foodbank Support started in December 2019; this month brings the fifth anniversary of a group of friends walking into a shop, buying a gazebo and printing off some signs because they wanted to make a difference. They accept any food or toiletry item that does not contain alcohol or require refrigeration.
At the end of every collection, one of the volunteers will package together all of the donations and take them to Manchester Central Foodbank, located in St. Peter’s House on Oxford Road on the way into the city centre.
MCFC Fans Foodbank Support are far from alone and keen to express that they took their own lead from others. In Liverpool, Fans Supporting Foodbanks was a joint initiative founded in October 2015 by Liverpool’s Spirit of Shankly and Everton‘s Blue Union fan groups to collect food donations at home games of each club. In Newcastle, the NUFC Fans Foodbank has been collecting since February 2017. Irons Supporting Foodbanks began at West Ham on the same day as the first Manchester City collection.
All these clubs share a connection: they are wealthy Premier League clubs that are located in, or near, areas of relative poverty. But perhaps in no place in world football is that contrast more stark than in east Manchester. In Gorton and Abbey Hey, 65.5% of households in this ward are classified as deprived in one or more way and one Manchester City Council document notes that “almost 50% of East Manchester’s residents live in neighbourhoods classified as being within the most 1% deprived in England”.
“The people who run the club might act like they operate in isolation of the local area, but east Manchester is one of the most deprived places in Europe and it has been for a long time,” says Alex Timperley, one of the founders of MCFC Foodbank.
Bags and bucket hats as Man City fans do their bit (Photo: MCFCfoodbank)
“We were talking to the food bank the other day, and they are giving food to over 1,500 people a week. That need doubled during the pandemic and they thought that would be the worst of it. In fact, since then the demand has doubled again.
“It’s astronomical. There is also that clear contrast between the multi-billionaire football club owner and many of the people who live close to this club. That contrast is pretty bleak, quite frankly.”
As a result of the organisational work and the generosity of those who give, these days form the biggest donors to the biggest foodbank in central Manchester. As with all foodbanks, they spend thousands of pounds on wholesale food that allow it to be a haven for those in need, but football fans at City games donate around one-a-half months-worth of the annual need.
As Alex stresses, this is not just about Manchester City supporters. Plenty of the donations they receive on a matchday are from away fans – positioning yourself next to a supermarket is smart: just go in and buy a few tins for us. When Fulham Lillies – a female Fulham supporters’ group – came to see them, they gained all the advice they needed to set up their own initiative at Craven Cottage that has now become established.
Manchester City 3-0 Nottingham Forest (Wednesday 4 December)
Game no.: 44/92
Miles: 123
Cumulative miles: 7,173
Total goals seen: 123
The one thing I’ll remember in May: The first time I have watched my own team this season. Forest have been flying away from…so obviously they lost 3-0.
This is the point of it all, right? Partly the aim here is a direct one: collecting provisions for those vulnerable in society who need them most. But there’s also an extra layer here: football supporters helping other supporters to assist others, which then naturally flows into other fan issues. It’s using the power of football supporters as a collective, prodigious mass to positive effect. There exists great untapped potential within that power.
“We do it at the football, because what brought us together was being City fans,” says Alex. “But we also chose football because football supporters are the biggest organised group of people in every town and city in the whole country. My belief is that if football fans all get together and decide that they want to do something, it will happen, whatever it is.
Fans inside the Etihad unveil a banner (Photo: MCFCfoodbank)
“Clubs are still largely based within their communities, even if their owners aren’t. Fans will always be there. And as much as City fans get some stick, the people who donate to our food bank, and we see them, are the same ones who were there in Division Two and were everybody’s second team. People who live in the community know it: the ones who are often in the position to offer the most help are the ones who offer the least.”
It should not go unnoticed that this movement is growing at exactly the time that the most loyal football supporters of the largest clubs in the country are increasingly being exploited, with ticket prices rising in search of tourist fans who will generate more matchday revenue. If the outdated stereotype of elite footballers has finally been eroded, the same process is happening for supporters and tribalism. They are coming together for the greater good.
This visit, and this piece, was deliberately timed around Christmas. This is the time of year when hot meals are most vital in preserving health, when heating poverty is at its most cutting and when parents feel extra pressure to provide a little something extra for their children. It becomes acute and can be too much to bear without support.
In fact, as Alex explains, I’m almost completely wrong.
“Donations definitely go up at this type of year, which is great,” he says. “People will clear out their cupboards or buy extra advent calendars. The other side is that what I’d call PR donations go up at this time of year too – companies, organisations, football clubs.
“What I would say is that we really need these same donations in January and February. The problem is that donations then tend to fall off a cliff after Christmas and the demand is just the same. If they could all stagger out their PR shots of filling up boxes over January and February, that would be useful! I must be clear: all donations are incredibly welcome.”
Alex, and everyone like him at football club foodbanks all over the country, are not aiming to solve the issue. This, sadly, is a losing battle for any number of non-wealthy individuals. There is accompanied campaigning for the Right To Food campaign that would aim to eliminate food poverty in the UK. But within that context, these people were given a choice: do something or do nothing. Doing something will mean everything to someone.
“It’s a losing battle, but the battle is there to be fought regardless and we’ll do our small bit for as long as that is needed,” says Alex. “Obviously the issue is bigger than people giving tins of beans. It’s a political and deep-rooted societal problem. But you can just do things, from week to week, that actually help people immediately.
“If I had one message it would be: You can just do stuff. I think people sometimes get stuck because they don’t really know how to start. There will always be people who come up with reasons why you need to wait or delay or put more thought into it. But you can do it now. A lot of people will donate and get involved if someone starts it. Know your own power.”
You can donate to Trussell Trust, a charity that is aiming to eradicate hunger in the UK,here.
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