World news

Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season. This is club 74/92. The best way to follow his journey and read all of the previous pieces is by subscribing here

We’re starting at a toilet block and I will make no apologies for it. At the back of Oakwell Stadium’s West Stand is one of the great relics of English football. I remember them from football grounds of my childhood, but this is the first time I’ve encountered one on this season-long tour.

Against the outside wall of the stadium environs, another internal wall runs. Walk through the door and you enter a room made entirely of concrete with a low ceiling. Around the room’s circumference is a shallow gutter. You simply stand next to each other and piss onto the internal wall. Some people will wince at the thought. I love it. I’m not a weirdo, promise.

Oakwell’s West Stand is a collection of these glorious anachronisms. On top of an outside wall that is painted in Barnsley red, the usual barbed wire is replaced by large shards of thick, bottle-green glass that glints in the sunshine to offer a warning for anyone hoping to shimmy up. The turnstile huts look like the outhouses you find jutted against the back of Victorian terraced housing. The passage is narrow enough to reflect a bygone era of food shortages.

Because the area underneath the West Stand is no longer used for its original purpose – the dressing rooms and tunnels have long ago been moved – it creates an eerie sense of abandonment. There are a set of steps, covered with metal railing to prevent access, that would lead to a gaping black hole as if allowing access to the earth’s interior itself.

The public-facing elements are no less alluring. This stand was built in 1910, two years before Barnsley won their only major trophy. Much of it is still as was: wooden seats, corrugated iron roof. In most stands, it is the nostalgic touches that are the most conspicuous. Here it’s the sale of southern-fried chicken strips that grab your attention because it jars against everything else.

In March 2021, when Barnsley were fifth in the Championship under Valerien Ismael and likely to finish in the play-offs, the Premier League safety officers came to Oakwell for their preliminary visit, just in case. The short answer, as Luton Town discovered only too well, was that an awful lot of work would need to be done.

The visit was unnecessary; Barnsley would lose 2-1 in the play-off semi-finals to Swansea City, who would in turn lose to Brentford at Wembley. But seven months later, Barnsley announced the temporary closure of the West Stand due to significant safety concerns. For three months, 1,000 season ticket-holders were moved while emergency work was completed.

Oakwell is almost unique in that it has three distinctly modern, all-seater stands and one Main Stand built 115 years ago. As a first-time visitor, you have two choices: sit in the West Stand and experience a football museum, or sit in any of the other three and admire it from afar. Both are great.

Barnsley 1-1 Cambridge United (Saturday 22 March)

• Game no.: 79/92
• Miles: 138
• Cumulative miles: 14,748
• Total goals seen: 206
• The one thing I’ll remember in May: The greatest toilet block in England football. No further details needed.

But more than all that, Oakwell is a reflection of the Barnsley experience. In the 1990s, when the club was expanding and reached the top flight for the first time in its history, Oakwell underwent a staggered transformation project. In 1993, a two-tiered East Stand was constructed. In 1995, the end now named after Norman Rimmington opened. In 1999, the large North Stand was finished, a single-tier Kop with a capacity of almost 6,300.

The West Stand? Well that was next, the final piece of this jigsaw. Then Barnsley lost seven of their last nine games in the Premier League and were relegated by five points. In 2000, Barnsley took the lead in the Division One play-off final against Ipswich Town but eventually lost 4-2 at Wembley. The dream died that day and the nightmare came next.

By 2002, Barnsley had been relegated to the third tier and were entering administration, just another club whose financial outlook was crippled by the collapse of ITV Digital. This was a relatively well-managed club to whom everything had happened at the wrong time: promotion before the lucrative era, a bad run in the spring, the downturn in performance coinciding with broadcasting revenue decimation.

As part of the deal to save Barnsley, Oakwell played its part. Part of the ground and area around it were sold to the town’s council. In 2023, Barnsley Council took 100 per cent ownership of the stadium after buying out the family of former owner Patrick Cryne. Barnsley now have a 30-year lease on their home.

Financial implosion doesn’t only cause short-term impact. In those towns where potential billionaire benevolent owners are in short supply, economic misery has a drip-down effect that leaves future seasons with water damage. Little did they know it then, but that 2000 play-off final would be Barnsley’s last top-half Championship finish for more than two decades.

A rot set in, sustained not by terrible decision-making nor controversy that rocked the town, but simply a grim reality of their cemented place within football’s food chain. Barnsley were promoted back into the second tier in 2006 and then endured seven straight seasons of finishing between 17th and 21st. When they left the division the next year, relegation felt to some like a blessed escape from tedious purgatory.

The most galling aspect of this existence? Even the good times come with caveats. When Barnsley overachieved in 2020-21 (according to their budgets at least), it was through the inspirational Ismael and a collection of young players recruited smartly. Within 18 months, Ismael had left for West Bromwich Albion and taken Alex Mowatt with him, Cauley Woodrow and Carlton Morris had gone to Luton Town (Mads Andersen would soon follow them) and Michal Helik had been sold to Huddersfield Town.

To clubs of Barnsley’s size, success tends to exist as a snapshot in time rather than as a process to be enjoyed. Do badly and everybody outside the region tends to forget you exist. Do well and the same people plot how their clubs might take your key assets. That’s not much fun.

And so Oakwell has become symbolic once again. Average attendances that had crept up to 14,000 when Barnsley were in the Championship have now fallen to around 12,300, but for the game against Cambridge United that I attend, 10,790 are present. This is a magnificently evocative stadium, but nowhere feels as special as it should when it’s half-empty.

The apathy is understandable. Disposable income is less available to most and thus the demand for football to offer escapism grows. Barnsley have won six of their last 30 matches at Oakwell. In the last two seasons, they have lost a play-off final in the last seconds of extra-time against a local rival and lost a semi-final 5-4 on aggregate. Now they are mid-table in League One and that just doesn’t feel worth it for some.

Those who are present against Cambridge United are grumpy, unimpressed by a laboured 1-1 draw against a team doomed to be relegated that requires a last-gasp home equaliser. Barnsley’s principal attacking strategy seems to be overhitting or underhitting a series of crosses until Cambridge are softened up for the one that finally finds its target. Rain pours over Oakwell during the second half. Another season is slipping away.

Apathy and anger are interchangeable. The cliched consensus is that one usually follows the other, but instead they dance in tandem across the psyche of loyal supporters. You persuade yourself that you don’t care because it makes you angry, but you never quite check out. You search for silver linings and that turns the mood black too.

As such, Barnsley’s owners come in for some stick. That is always the way, and again I get it. Everybody needs someone to blame and it’s always tempting to shift it up the food chain. During a season of difficult recruitment and a manager sacked, there is some reason to criticise the approach of Neerav Parekh, the chairman and majority shareholder. Some fans have accused Parekh of greed.

In the midweek that follows the Cambridge draw, the chairman was interviewed by The Barnsley Chronicle and addressed the growing unease.

“Fans are entitled to their opinion, but the ones who say we’re greedy wouldn’t be able to read a balance sheet if it smacked them in the face,” Parekh said. “We haven’t taken a penny out of the club and we’ve put in somewhere close to £15m over the last three years.

“It’s pretty evident all the money has gone in and losing money is not a problem unique to Barnsley. I think 89 of the 92 EFL clubs lost money and the only three who didn’t were Premier League. It’s a symptom of a broken system.

“A lot of fans have genuine concerns that we could have done better and we could have done in certain instances… I hope the fans can give us a little bit more patience.”

And that’s the thing: Parekh is right, too. He estimates that Barnsley will lose between £8m and £10m this season and insists that he will put in more this summer. He wants to prioritise youth development and player trading to fuel greater sustainability, but then promotion from this league is mighty difficult when clubs above you are buying players for millions of pounds. As before, there are not many benevolent billionaires prepared to throw many more millions at Barnsley just because they can.

Barnsley will persevere. There will be good times again, even if they come only as a result of diminished expectations. If success does arrive with caveats, we can all find joy in the moments otherwise we wouldn’t bother. On my way out of Oakwell I see an elderly couple, arms linked, the gentleman carrying the bag as his wife walks with a stick. She has on a red overcoat that camouflages her against the outside wall of the West Stand. It seems to me so quintessentially Barnsley that I can’t help but smile.

Oakwell will persevere too, in its current state and with further improvements. There are sore points for some, obviously: the empty side of the West Stand, the vast gaps in a North Stand that is given to away supporters in full. I understand that.

But selfishly, I love Oakwell for what it symbolises, the way it tells the history and present of its football club. With three modern stands and a relic, it exists as a statue to hope and ambition that promised much but was ultimately unrequited. It is a reminder that progress rarely comes easily and, without it, apathy can grow. One day they will sing here again. It wouldn’t be worth waiting for if it was easy.

Daniel Storey has set himself the goal of visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season. You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/13IpG8Y

Myles Lewis-Skelly‘s first taste of senior international football couldn’t have been much sweeter.

The 18-year-old scored a debut goal against Albania, earned two caps as a starter, and advanced his case to fill a problem position for England after earning a promotion from Thomas Tuchel.

Club managers don’t tend to relish international get-togethers due to the injury risk; the flipside is that they stand to benefit when things go well. Lewis-Skelly may well have levitated back to Arsenal‘s leafy headquarters in Hertfordshire.

Those who have worked with Lewis-Skelly will have been delighted for him, but not surprised by his impact, given his tendency to adapt quickly to new challenges and thrive as the difficulty levels increase.

“[It was] a great moment,” Mikel Arteta said of his goal. “We are all so happy for him.”

Dan Micciche, who was Lewis-Skelly’s head coach for Arsenal U18s, is used to seeing him perform “when it counts”.

“For him to score the goal and take it as he did just highlighted once again his mentality and temperament to deliver on these big occasions,” he tells The i Paper.

Lewis-Skelly’s natural ability and determination were noticeable from an early age.

The same was true of Ethan Nwaneri, who also impressed in the international break with a superb goal for England’s U21s against Portugal. They were both playing regularly for Arsenal’s U18s at just 15.

Best friends since they were six, Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri’s careers have been inextricably linked since the start to the extent that it is almost difficult to talk about one without mentioning the other.

It is rare for two such highly-rated prospects to break through at the same time, after all, particularly at a club the size of Arsenal.

“They were so advanced at their age in all areas: technically, tactically, physically, psychologically,” Micciche, who previously worked with England’s underage groups for four-and-a-half years, recalls.

“If I were to compare them to players from England that I worked with at a similar age, they were at that level if not better.

“Ethan at 15 or 16 was as good as Callum Hudson-Odoi, Phil Foden, Marcus Edwards and Cole Palmer. Myles was equally compared to midfield players who went on to do extremely well like Curtis Jones or Mason Mount.”

At a different point in the conversation, Micciche mentions another former prodigy of English football, Dele Alli, whom he coached at MK Dons.

“He was a different type of player to them but actually more effective in certain areas too,” he says of Lewis-Skelly, the midfielder. “He had a great ability to drive with the ball and had really good ball manipulation skills.”

Indeed, the only element of Lewis-Skelly’s emergence that has caught Micciche off guard is where on the pitch it has come from.

On Monday, Arteta remarked how unusual it is for a young player to score on their senior international debut, “especially a full-back”.

During Micciche’s near four-year spell with the Gunners, Lewis-Skelly “never played there” and was instead a driving force from central midfield.

“It’s also not unusual for this to happen because a lot of the time the best players [at youth level] play through the middle as you want them to get on the ball,” he adds.

“Left-footed young players don’t often break through down the middle. Ethan would never play on the right wing in his formative years because you’re relying on too many variables to get him the ball.

“Myles spends a lot of his time in midfield anyway. If he was just playing at left-back and not allowed to invert and get involved in the game, I don’t think he’d be the same player.”

Lewis-Skelly’s grounding as a midfielder has certainly helped him adjust to an unfamiliar role, where he shuttles infield to help Arsenal overload in the middle. He uses the ball well, playing probing passes through the lines.

And as his goal for England highlighted, he is refining his underlapping runs to become more of a threat in the final third.

“He’s seeing the game from a different perspective,” Micciche says.

“Defensively it’s very different, a lot of one vs one defending against high-level wingers which he wouldn’t have really been exposed to before. [But] he’s learning on the job very well.”

It hasn’t all been sailing. Lewis-Skelly has already been sent off twice in only 26 games for Arsenal, although a controversial dismissal against Wolverhampton Wanderers was later rescinded.

He also attracted criticism from some quarters for mocking Erling Haaland by mimicking his lotus position celebration. “I think it just showed his confidence,” Micciche counters.

Nevertheless, he has made an extremely accomplished start to his career. With positions at left-back and central midfield up for grabs at Arsenal and England, Lewis-Skelly will hope to further solidify his status as a regular starter for Arteta and Tuchel.

There may be more opportunities to play in his favoured position at the Emirates next season, with Jorginho and Thomas Partey both out of contract in the summer.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he does [end up in midfield], but it depends on his form and what Arsenal’s plans are. He’s still so young,” Micciche says. “It’s hard to tell, but nothing he or Ethan does surprises me.”

Regardless of if and where Lewis-Skelly eventually settles in one position or the other, he looks set to be an asset for Arsenal and England for years to come. It has been a fine start, but there are plenty more levels still to unlock.

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/c7xlvMJ

Has there ever been a club in a situation as unique as one Liverpool find themselves in these final, “clutch” weeks of the Premier League season?

Twelve points clear and with a fixture list that suggests they can stroll to only their second title in 36 years, Arne Slot‘s side are edging closer to the Premier League crown that their champagne football fully merits.

Yet as machinations over Trent Alexander-Arnold’s apparently imminent move to Real Madrid continued this week, it’s impossible to escape the feeling that Liverpool will hurtle into a period of unprecedented uncertainty when the red pyro smoke clears in May.

Anxieties that were parked as Slot effortlessly led Liverpool to the top of the Premier League have also resurfaced after bruising defeats to Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle United before the international week.

As well as the three main men heading into the final weeks of their current contracts, Liverpool have work to do upgrading a squad that has barely been touched for a year.

At No 9, left-back and centre-back – regardless of what happens with Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk – they need better and that may mean player trading in other positions.

Dan Clubbe, a presenter on Redmen TV, sums the situation up succinctly: “We’re fast approaching an end of the season that looks both glorious and terrifying.”

Inside football, there is fascination at how Richard Hughes – the club’s director of football – and Michael Edwards, Liverpool’s chief executive and the sharpest mind in the sport, approach the situation.

“They’re the best in the game,” one rival Premier League director of football tells The i Paper.

“Their combined contacts, knowledge and expertise is really impressive so I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t a bigger plan in motion at Liverpool. Whatever we see on the outside, experience suggests you should trust the process.”

Having been effectively Jurgen Klopp’s domain in the German’s final year, there is no doubt that Liverpool is now run by the Edwards brains trust. And they have been reliably right about enough things – including Slot – to have earned the trust of supporters heading into a pivotal summer.

But, barring any last minute surprises, the departure of Alexander-Arnold to the Bernabeu is undoubtedly a blow. There is pressure on to soften it with the retention of Van Dijk and Salah, with more positive noises about the ongoing contract negotiations for that duo.

“It’s hard not to place your trust in them,” Clubbe says. “For all their faults, FSG [Fenway Sports Group] do tend to get best in class.

“Bringing back Michael Edwards was that, you’d like to think Richard Hughes is that because Michael Edwards wanted him and Arne Slot looks to be that as well. So as far as the summer is daunting, it’s exciting as well.”

Slot’s success means they have earned that faith. One of the reasons he was favoured for the job was that he scored so highly on Liverpool’s data analysis for improving players.

Throughout the squad there is evidence of that: Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister are two whose numbers have significantly improved this season, along with Salah.

Anfield insiders have been highly impressed by Slot and and are convinced he will join the small band of coaches considered elite in the coming years. Now he needs to be repaid with reinforcements and re-signed contracts.

Will that happen? One recruitment executive who has had multiple dealings with the club summed Liverpool up as “taking forever to make a decision” and the methodical way they work has seen them miss out on some targets, including Jude Bellingham while he was at Borussia Dortmund.

But that patience does not mean things aren’t happening behind-the-scenes. One source characterised Liverpool’s work on Milos Kerkez as “meticulous and proper due diligence”, making a mockery of the social media theory that highly rated director of football Hughes has been asleep on the job since being head-hunted by Edwards a year ago.

The Reds have been working through a three-man shortlist for a player to push Andy Robertson at left-back. Nuno Mendes, of Paris Saint-Germain, joined Bayern Munich‘s Alphonso Davies in signing a new contract which leaves Kerkez as the last man standing. But The i Paper has been told they also retain admiration for Ajax‘s Jorrel Hato.

Owners Fenway Sports Group are also now at an advanced stage as they look to broker a deal for another club and construct a multi-club model that will have benefits for Liverpool.

The appointment of Pedro Marques, described by those who know him as “diligent, strategy-focused, a great guy to have”, in the summer was a sign of their intent on that front and he has been leading a data-driven process to identify alternative clubs. Sources tell The i Paper they now have “three or four options”.

Crucially, FSG have a non-negotiable that the club must be playing in European competition, which has reduced the pool of options and also suggests they want to bring a team of considerable heft into the group.

The theory behind all of this is that Liverpool will prosper in the long-term. But there is surely short-term glory just around the corner.

Reds legend Graeme Souness doesn’t subscribe to the idea that Liverpool’s season is now a qualified success after tumbling out of the Champions League.

“They’ve been fantastic,” he says. “When I played for Liverpool we always put more stock in winning the league than anything else.

“It says more about you as an individual, you’ve weathered the difficult times better than anyone else, as an individual and as a team. And that stands true for this team.”

Souness suggests the aim for them now is to rediscover the “aggression” that has seen other teams wilt in matches against them this season.

“For all the fabulous football they’ve played, they’ve had an aggressive attitude. Other teams have thrown in the towel against them first,” he says.

He believes this title would be even more special than the one won in 2019. “Look, I was at the Chelsea game where they got the trophy with no one in the stadium and that was my thought: you don’t know what you’re missing,” Souness says.

“These players, if they win it, the ones who will do it again will realise what they missed first time around. Forget anything else, to do it in front of that crowd is very, very special.”

Graeme Souness was talking to The i Paper as he urges fans to join the British Heart Foundation’s Every Minute Matters campaign to persuade people to learn life-saving CPR

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/nAM5s1I

It’s long been established that football executives largely lack the capacity for shame. Maybe it’s genetic, maybe just an industry requirement. Shame is not conducive to a job so public-facing and yet inherently unlikeable.

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to Marcus Rashford. There is a world in which the gradual, delicate rebuilding of his mind, career and reputation at Aston Villa would humiliate Ruben Amorim and his employers, raising serious questions about their competence and wider club environment. But of course, no risk of that.

For Manchester United, this means his tentative success only holds positives. Two months into his loan, it’s going exactly as they hoped, perhaps better. Too aggressive a miracle recovery: could inflict reputational damage on the parent club, even if they don’t care. Too little progress elsewhere: see Jadon Sancho. Progress and promise, without setting the world alight: just right.

Not receiving a loan fee, the 75 per cent of his salary Villa are covering could rise to 90 if enough performance-related incentives are met. The £40m agreed price is optional, and Unai Emery said after the FA Cup win over Preston that the club’s decision on taking up that option is dependent on results through the rest of this season.

United know any hope of a functioning on-pitch relationship with Rashford is dead, such is the depth of emotional breakage, the shattered trust and overwhelming expectation turned world-bending pressure. Anything salvageable in the festering wreckage that relationship went out of the window when Amorim said he would rather pick his 63-year-old goalkeeping coach than Rashford.

Their only priority now is bleeding as much profit as possible from the man who has given the best part of his career and an irreplaceable part of his soul to the club. Who knows, it could even fund free staff lunches for the next 50 years, or more likely one of the flightpath-bothering towers of Sir Norman Foster’s stadium vision.  

Rashford’s two goals on Sunday – his first at Villa and in 119 days across both clubs – are not necessarily the first signs of a revolution. Lads, it’s Preston. Yet any improvement is still so gratefully received.

Alongside the brace, Rashford has four assists since moving, all for Marco Asensio. There will need to be a lot more over the coming months to persuade Emery and Co this is worth permanent investment, but an FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace and Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain allow him opportunity to prove that.

“I feel like I’ve been getting fitter and playing better football since I’ve been here,” Rashford said post-match. “I missed a lot of football before joining up with them. My body feels good and I’m enjoying my football for now.”

Emery spoke along similar lines: “There is still work, still weeks to get it, but today he did one step forward. He is feeling comfortable, getting confident and scoring goals. He was obviously getting better, but today it was more in his adaptation and helping us.

“The process we have with him is more or less not changing. There is still work to do because he came here after not training consistently and not feeling in his best fitness. Progressively playing more and with the national team will help him to feel better and today was confirmation of that, which is good.”

There’s a dig at United in there somewhere, but they’ll only care about the perceived progress. Even if Villa ultimately cannot afford Rashford, previous suitors Barcelona and PSG will be more inclined to pay up with every improved performance.

The same goes for Antony at Real Betis, with four goals and four assists in his 12 matches since leaving Old Trafford. His is another loan deal dependent on performance-based incentives, but with no pre-agreed fee. Isco joked on Sunday Betis would need to start crowdfunding to sign the man widely considered the worst Premier League signing ever. Three months ago that would have been beyond United’s wildest fantasies.

Sporting director Manu Fajardo said recently that “Antony is performing immediately from minute one in the squad”. He also explained any permanent signing would be contingent on Betis staying “in the top European positions”. From here, as with Rashford, the happier and more successful Antony is, the better for United.

It is increasingly clear Ineos’s primary objective is emotional and financial bloodletting, a purging of past mistakes – if only to provide space to make new ones – and lasering of scars. Cut before you bulk. Out with the old, in with Dorgu. This is a reasonable realisation for any followers of popular soap opera turned farce: Manchester United 2013-2025.

Of course United might well still have Sancho’s slumped shoulders back at Carrington in the summer, but shedding Rashford and Antony for anything above a nominal fee can only be good. Every goal and assist, against Preston or otherwise, can only help that happen.

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/nXjUoJE

Jacob Murphy is targeting an ­England call-up and a long career at Newcastle United, insisting the city has to “get used to” regular ­trophy parades.

On Saturday an estimated 300,000 supporters gathered to celebrate a Carabao Cup win that has prompted something close to mass euphoria.

For Murphy – a Newcastle fan through his parents, even though he was brought up in London – it was best summed up as “crazy, surreal”.

“You drive those streets daily, weekly but then to see them full of people is something you can’t put into words. I didn’t know there were that many people in Newcastle!” he said.

“As a club we want to be doing that every season and without putting too much pressure on ourselves we’ve now set a level and that’s what we have to be aiming for and striving for every season.

“Granted it’s not going to happen every season because wonderful teams up and down the country are going to make it difficult for us but these are moments, now that we’ve got a taste for it and we want it again.

“It feels like the start of something. I think the Newcastle fans, the Council, everyone – they’re going to have to get used to this, the planning and the logistics of a bus parade.

“We always knew that the specialness was in being the first. To be on that bus knowing we are the first in so long to do it makes it even more special.”

Murphy is perhaps a good example of why this victory has meant so much to a squad, city and supporter base that has been starved of success for so long.

When the Saudi-fuelled takeover was passed in 2021 there was an assumption that the likes of Murphy, signed by Rafa Benitez as a project player in an era when Newcastle were minding their money, would be cast aside.

He was on loan at second tier Sheffield Wednesday under successor Steve Bruce but fought tirelessly to become an integral part of Eddie Howe’s history boys.

Wrapped up in his own personal story are all the factors that have made Howe’s victory so impressive: coaching kudos, self-improvement, a refusal to quit and a respect for the club he plays for.

“The journey I’ve been on [makes it mean more],” he said. “There’s one point where everyone thought it was my time to go but I never thought that and there I was on that bus parade, and leaping at the back post, nodding it down to our superstar striker to put us 2-0 in front [in the final].

“So it’s just an amazing journey, one I’m proud of and one my family are proud of. It’s just awesome.”

It is not over yet. Murphy is taking heart from teammate Dan Burn’s unlikely elevation to England honours at the age of 32, seeing at as motivation to follow the same route.

“It’s a conversation me and [first-team coach] Graeme Jones have been having for a number of seasons,” he said. “I have to keep putting out performances because they’re always keeping an eye out for English players.

“To see Dan get his call-up was amazing, it does give you that extra motivation. We’ve got [Anthony] Gordon, Lewis Hall, Tino [Livramento] and when you’re kicking it with them every week, you think there’s every chance in the future.

“I keep my head down and – you know – I’ve just won a cup with Newcastle so who’s to say no to getting a call-up?”

Newcastle are targeting right wing reinforcements this summer but Murphy is assured of a place in Howe’s plans whatever happens. The manager likes him a lot and would retain him even if some of the ambitious targets he is looking at are available.

And that suits Murphy, whose immediate priority is to refocus minds on a return to the Champions League. “That’s the aim, we’ve got 10 huge games now,” he said.

“There’s 30 points to get and we need to try our best because we might have got some sort of European football [the Carabao Cup win qualifies the club for the Conference League] but we want the big dog.”

Read our best coverage on Newcastle United

Mark Douglas: Celebration police will hate it but this party showed why Newcastle is so special

Sam Cunningham: The photo that should send chills through English football

Exclusive: Newcastle eye two transfer targets and close in on new deal for cup final hero

Transfer news: Newcastle join six-horse Premier League race for Europe’s hottest property

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/9hWbFvf

Aston Villa have been drawn against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup semi-finals after swatting aside Championship side Preston 3-0 at Deepdale.

Marcus Rashford scored his first two goals in a Villa shirt, adding a penalty five minutes after sharply finishing the opener, before Jacob Ramsey added a third.

Palace blitzed past Fulham on Saturday to earn their spot at Wembley next month, with goals from Eberechi Eze, Ismaila Sarr and Eddie Nketiah.

Oliver Glasner’s side have won their past six games in all competitions and will be dreaming of finally winning a first major trophy.

Fulham were the first Premier League opponents the south Londoners faced en route to the semi-final, having beaten Stockport, Doncaster and Millwall in earlier rounds.

Palace have twice been runners-up in this competition, losing the final to Manchester United in 1990 and again in 2016.

Villa last won a major trophy in 1996 and have not won the FA Cup since 1957 – a 72-year wait.

But manager Unai Emery has a long history of cup success, having won four Europa Leagues, two French Cups and two French League Cups throughout his career at Sevilla, Paris Saint-Germain and Villarreal.

Meanwhile Nottingham Forest – another side without major silverware this century – will face either Bournemouth or seven-time winners Manchester City for their spot in the final.

The Midlanders edged past Brighton on penalties after a goalless draw on the south coast, winning a record third shootout of this FA Cup campaign.

Ryan Yates slotted the winning spot-kick after Diego Gomez and Jack Hinshelwood both missed for the hosts.

An FA Cup win would be further confirmation of Nuno Espirito Santo’s remarkable work with Forest. They sit third in the Premier League and look set for Champions League qualification.

FA Cup semi-final draw in full

• Nottingham Forest vs Bournemouth or Manchester City
• Crystal Palace vs Aston Villa

Ties will take place on the weekend of Saturday 26 April

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/MBW3zEY

It was just after half past three in the febrile city centre of Newcastle when two men in hard hats appeared on the top of the Sandman Hotel.

On the streets below, the atmosphere had been fizzing with anticipation all day as fans young and old, from families blowing vuvuzelas to well-oiled twenty somethings wielding cans of beer, came together to salute the Newcastle United squad who had broken the spell of seven decades without a domestic trophy.

But the Geordie party of a lifetime needed its iconic, Instagrammable moment and here it was: two workers abseiling down the side of the glass fronted building to unfurl a giant Tifo style flag of Eddie Howe punching the air in celebration.

It was – like the Carabao Cup-winning performance it marked – a daring and ambitious display by the Wor Flags group with plenty of potential to blow up in their faces. But despite a collective holding of breath they managed to pull it off perfectly.

UNITED @worflags #wedontdoquiet pic.twitter.com/JqBRW9Fkkm

— Newcastle United (@NUFC) March 29, 2025

Karen Kilgour, the leader of Newcastle Council, described pulling together Saturday’s celebrations on the city’s Town Moor as the equivalent of “organising Glastonbury festival in a couple of weeks” and she wasn’t wrong.

An estimated 150,000 lined the open-topped bus route from St James’ Park with the same again inside a free, e-ticketed event to see the players and various special guests and get their own “I was there” moment.

Fans climbed trees and lamposts, scaled statues outside St James’ Park and braved the bracing winds that swept over the Town Moor to acclaim their heroes.

In front of the main stage fans stood for almost five hours to be able to get the best view when the players eventually emerged just after 6pm. It really was some celebration.

Everywhere you looked there were people in black and white streaming into the city centre. Ditching the car with the roads closed for the parade I walked a couple of miles from the leafy suburb of Gosforth – good luck getting onto public transport quickly, with queues snaking round the block.

Almost every business or office block was displaying pictures of the winning team. Greggs had LED displays claiming NUFC 2025 were “baked in history” and black and white flags fluttered from pub windows.

Only the Carabao Cup? Good luck to the celebration police trying to spin that line at Newcastle’s party of a lifetime.

There was only unapologetic, unabashed euphoria here. From Alan Shearer almost choking up on stage as he said with bracing sincerity that the Wembley win was “the best day of his life” to the disbelief of Bruno Guimaraes singing a song in praise of Sandro Tonali that included the line that he “hates f**king Sunderland” on live TV.

Bruno kept taking the mic off Ant and Dec but they didn’t mind. Even Alexander Isak, the laconic personification of cool, tried his hand at Geordie dialect in front of the gathered thousands.

No doubt Newcastle’s rivals will have hated it. The rest of the country was probably bemused by it. But it did feel pretty special to be part of it, either standing backstage as the wide-eyed players stepped off the two buses that had snaked through the city centre from St James’ Park to the main event at the Town Moor or witnessing compere Ant McPartlin hugging everyone in sight and saying he had “achieved his lifelong dream” by being part of the procession.

If Ant was overwhelmed he wasn’t the only one. Howe is a really fascinating character, much more rounded and emotional than the version he presents in front of the press conference cameras or in the soundbites that emerge during the season.

It has often felt during the last fortnight that he is still coming to terms with the magnitude of what he has managed to achieve at Newcastle in releasing the black and white genie from the bottle.

He looked genuinely choked as he was quizzed about the flag by Declan Donnelly as the open-topped bus snaked slowly through the city centre. “I have a pretty unique personality and I feel so privileged that the club and the supporters have accepted me as they have. Thank you to all the supporters,” he said.

Howe insists Newcastle must kick on

Eddie Howe said his players have to use the “energy” generated by their Carabao Cup win to power their push for a Champions League place.

An estimated 300,000 fans gathered on Saturday to acclaim Newcastle’s players after their historic 2-1 win over Liverpool a fortnight ago in memorable scenes. But after the weekend party it is back to business on Wednesday with Howe admitting that the club’s thoughts should now be “on the future”.

“We are hungry for more but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We have 10 huge Premier League games to go back to and try focus on that. I think the taste of success leaves you hungry for more days like this,” he said.

“I hope we can use that energy that’s out there. Listen there’s no guarantees. Look, there’s two ways we can react to this cup final win and we have to use it for a positive, not the negative.

“We have to use the love and feeling we’ve got today as a driver to work harder, train better and to prepare better and our focus now will be on the future.”

Later, after completing the last of many rounds of interviews on the day, Howe sought out every single one of the North-East press pack to shake their hands.

There is a humility about him which probably lies at the heart of his success – none of what he achieves seems to be about feeding his own ego.

It was genuinely touching on stage to see him call members of Newcastle’s backroom staff – long-serving team operations manager Tony Toward and kitmen Ray Thompson and Neil Stoker among them – to lift the trophy in front of the crowd.

“There is no other city like Newcastle when it comes to football,” he said on stage.

“We are nothing as a football club without you the fans, we need you, your passion, your loyalty and your unwavering support. And just know, we hope this is just the start of things, just know we will give absolutely everything we have to bring success to this football club.”

Inevitably, talk has turned to what happens next at Newcastle. Many have spoken about this being the start of a dynasty and Shearer suggested as much when he pointed out that Chelsea and Manchester City kicked on after ending their own long waits for trophies in the last couple of decades.

But even if Newcastle do go on to win more, it won’t feel like this did. Partly that is because the club – bankrolled, lest we forget, by Saudi billions and all the questions that come with that – still has a slightly careworn feel to it.

It is nowhere near being a ruthless, well-drilled winning machine and this success has been hard-earned, featuring players like Dan Burn and unsung hero Jacob Murphy who have had to tread the road less travelled to get here.

But also because for many supporters it is freighted with emotion. Trawl Facebook and X and you will see the many fans mentioning relatives who loved the club but passed away before they got to witness Newcastle winning things.

Poignant posts from fans who took items of clothing that belonged to a passed on father or grandparent to Wembley underline that point.

That emotion needed an outlet and on Saturday it arrived with one final euphoric party. Tears were shed and memories were made.

A day @AlanShearer has waited for all his life #BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/PyVcoNMR8k

— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) March 29, 2025

“Whatever happens after this. Whatever we go on to win, none of them will be better than this,” a surprisingly emotional Shearer said on stage, voice cracking as he spoke about his recently departed father.

“Whatever happens to me, no matter how long I’m here for, I can die happy knowing I saw this moment. Winning at Wembley, it was the best day I’ve had in football, the best day of my life.”

Read our best coverage on Newcastle United

Mark Douglas: Newcastle’s Carabao Cup win belongs to the boyhood fan who refused to quit

Sam Cunningham: The photo that should send chills through English football

Exclusive: Newcastle eye two transfer targets and close in on new deal for cup final hero

Transfer news: Newcastle join six-horse Premier League race for Europe’s hottest property

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/LZc2BTM

Wayne Rooney called Nuno Espirito Santo’s decision to rest key Nottingham Forest players for the FA Cup quarter-final tie at Brighton “beyond belief”.

Both Anthony Elanga and Callum Hudson-Odoi have been named on the bench for the match, which kicked off at 5.15pm.

Danilo and Ryan Yates came into the line-up, with Taiwo Awoniyi also in the starting XI after star striker Chris Wood was ruled out with a hip injury.

Forest are currently third in the Premier League, and with a Champions League place in their own hands, Nuno’s decision suggested his priorities lie away from the FA Cup.

They host Manchester United in the league on Tuesday, and former England captain Rooney was critical of the decision to field a weakened side on Saturday evening.

“I’m shocked,” Rooney said on BBC. “The FA Cup is such a prestigious tournament. To rest players in a quarter-final when you’ve got a great opportunity to get to a semi-final.

“They’re trying to get Champions League football which is fine, it’s great, but as a player you want to play and you want momentum, to keep trying to win games.

“If I was a fan I’d be fuming. You want to win silverware and this is a great opportunity. To leave players out when you’re not guaranteed to win the game Tuesday, it’s beyond belief.”

Addressing his team selection before kick-off, Nuno said: “The cup is always a good chance for players who are working hard but not had minutes in the league. These players deserve their moments.”

When asked by Gary Lineker for his prediction ahead of the match, Rooney then said Nuno’s decision would play a key factor.

“I think Nuno has shown his priority is the Premier League and that will run through to the players, so I think Brighton will win,” Rooney said.

More to follow.

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/Uz6E3Ck