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If fortune really does favour the brave then Oli McBurnie should be on the brink of the most remarkable promotion to the Premier League with Hull City.

This most interesting footballer, a throwback centre-forward who admits he wears “toddler’s shinpads” due to superstition and has a passion for travel, is certainly not afraid to take a risk. When he was 19 he nearly left Bradford City to join Freiburg, a move he had his heart set on after Googling Baden-Württemberg and thinking it looked “pretty picturesque”.

Two years ago he turned down a contract offer from Sheffield United to uproot his young family and join Las Palmas, learning Spanish within a few weeks and embracing life in the sun-kissed Canary Islands, where he became something of a cult hero.

Last summer he was at it again, taking another huge leap of faith to join Hull. The Tigers were a club under a transfer embargo, who had just appointed a little-known manager and were among the favourites for relegation. The general consensus when he signed: what on earth is he thinking?

Hull City felt different

“There were a few raised eyebrows, for sure, but I don’t like taking the safe option,” McBurnie tells The i Paper of his decision to join the Tigers over former club Sheffield United and a clutch of rival Championship clubs who were vying for his signature.

“But Hull felt a bit different. I like to do my due diligence and I had a few conversations – with [sporting director] Jared Dublin and (manager) Sergej Jakirovic. Acun [Ilicali] is also such an enthusiastic owner and that really came across but he wanted me to make a football decision, not an emotional one.

“He was almost sitting in the background until I signed, then when I made the decision he couldn’t do enough for me. Maybe you didn’t see it from the outside but I thought all the ingredients were there to be a successful team and successful club.”

Nine months on McBurnie feels his hunch has been “vindicated”. Having over performed all season Hull regained their momentum to sneak back into the play-offs on a dramatic final day of the season that saw them leapfrog Wrexham and tee up a two-legged semi-final with Millwall. The club are the underdogs in the play-offs but are embracing it.

“I’d never thought of it this way but someone said to me the other day we were the only club who wanted to be in the play-offs on that final day,” McBurnie says.

“Millwall and Middlesbrough were playing for an outside chance of second, maybe that will have an impact, who knows? We’re all buzzing, there’s no fear, we’re just looking forward to it and I just think it’s going to be a special night, an ‘old school’ sort of Friday night game under the lights. It feels like whole city is up for it.”

Jakirovic gets it

Ilicali, the larger-than-life Turkish media mogul who bought the club four years ago, has driven the project and was in tears at the final whistle on Saturday. He came into the dressing room after the game and gave the players a memorable speech.

“He has promised a few things, yeah. He said to us ‘You will see how crazy I really am if we get promoted’ so I like the sound of that. I’d like to see what he means.”

If they’re going to do that, you’d think McBurnie will have a big say in it. His 17 goals – already two more than he promised Jakirovic when they first met – have played a huge part in Hull’s success but so too has their unheralded manager.

In an era of bosses hung up on projects and philosophies, McBurnie believes he “gets” the Championship as well as any manager he has played under.

“One of the best things I can say about the manager is his adaptability. It’s not kind of his way or the highway, it’s not a dictatorship. He’s not stubborn like a lot of managers typically are and I think that’s been one of the reasons we’ve done so well this year,” he explains.

“It’s probably hard to game plan us against us because we play so many different ways against different teams.

“It’s been brilliant for me – the manager’s giving me the freedom to go out and play how I want to play and kind of making the game plan about getting balls in the box.”

World Cup hopes

Mystifyingly it has not been enough to turn the head of Steve Clarke which is why McBurnie’s second aim this season – to get into Scotland’s World Cup plans – is likely to evade him.

“I’m happy with my efforts. I have done all I can and ultimately it’s the manager’s decision. I have to respect whichever way he goes,” he says.

McBurnie’s other frustration is that he is regarded by some as belonging to the category of forwards who are too good for the Championship but not good enough for the Premier League. Nonsense, he insists.

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“I think I’ve got nearly 100 Premier League games now, probably nearly half of my footballing career has been in the Premier League,” he says.

“The last two out of the three seasons when I was top scorer for Sheffield United [that was] in the Premier League and the last year that I was there was really hampered by injuries.

“I think I had maybe six goals, four assists but I only started 14 games or something due to injuries and a couple of suspensions, which might be my own fault.

“From that I’ve always felt like I could compete at the top level. I do feel like I’ve got unfinished business in the Premier League.”

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Sport does an effective line in signposting your second chances, daring you to look failure square in the eyes as you try to nick redemption out of its back pocket. In the final home game of last season, Grimsby Town had a shot at the top seven in front of their biggest crowd in 12 years and they blew it.

In the final home game of this season, against Swindon Town, the same bumper crowd and the same opportunity. Grimsby Town won 4-0. David Artell’s men were rampant. It felt like a redemption, a celebration and an exorcism all in one. The prize comes this week: two games from Wembley.

I am forever drawn back to this place. I love everything about Blundell Park: the sea, the terraced housing, watching tankers from the old big stand, the sense that everybody is coming together, the sheer permanence of the place, rising like a church over a small town. It is the club whose staff are the friendliest in the country and that is something that sticks with you.

It is undeniable that this part of the UK has struggled badly. The decline of the fishing industry took jobs away and nobody was told of any plan to replace them. It created deep, understandable resentment.

They wanted someone to listen and the only people who even seemed to try were bad faith actors. Play it on repeat in end-of-the-line coastal towns where the residents feel disenfranchised through the deliberate ignorance by governments of their lot.

It is also true that Grimsby Town struggled too and impossible to ignore how those two strands become intertwined, even if it is purely coincidental and fatalism is bunk. It is 20 years since Grimsby competed in Football League play-offs and it might as well be half a lifetime.

Then they hoped it was the end of the three-year slide: 24th (relegated), 21st (relegated), 18th. But no such luck. Grimsby didn’t go up and just fell down again. Over the last 15 years, they have spent almost half of their life as a non-league club after 99 consecutive years of league football. Around here, that was a calamity.

Grimsby Town’s fortunes changed in 2021, when Jason Stockwood and Andrew Pettit, two men of the town and lifelong supporters who made their money elsewhere, came home again.

Their intention, and their delivery, has been not just to revitalise the football club but help the local area too. They have achieved fine work in both. Those intertwined strands become visible again, but this time not as a self-destructive cycle but as symbiosis.

Their wealth has made a huge difference, although it is invested rather than spent wildly and there is a plan to make the club one of the most sustainable in the EFL. It is both unhelpfully patronising and romantic to suggest otherwise. Nothing makes things change like money.

But I believe that it does make a difference who they are too. There is an emotional devastation caused by seeing desolation manifest in the place you grew up and it creates a charge to lead a movement.

The reflective pride is greater too. So is your authority and your authenticity and both generate buy-in from the people.

The local area is rebounding. It is a world leader in offshore wind power. There is a £100m regeneration project and it can be a natural home of the renewable energy industry.

The only jokes about fishing are the self-deprecating ones sung from the Findus Stand.

On the pitch, Artell has been better than almost all before him at creating that works and entertains and one that is capable of overcoming a setback before it leads to a rut, never easy at clubs who have been burnt in the recent past.

Until September 2024, Grimsby hadn’t won consecutive league games for 18 months.

Grimsby wobbled after their magnificent cup run in the autumn, but recovery was emphatic. Since Christmas they top the League Two table. They have three players with 10 or more league goals, a rare diversification of goal-scoring here. This season is Grimsby’s highest-scoring in the Football League since 1979.

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But most of all this is an accumulation of good sense, on and off the pitch, coming together to create better. Incoherence and uncertainty are the two biggest barriers to progress in the EFL. This is a club and a team that knows itself, a quiet revelation. As such, it doesn’t appear as vast overachievement – rather the optimism of competence.

Promotion would be the next step and an important one, given its symbolism – projects need mileposts and places to hang their hats. But something has changed anyway, and hopefully for good.

For too long, Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Grimsby Town were places where people looked back with resentment at what went wrong or what might have been. Now people are looking forward again. As someone who loves coming here, I think that is pretty great.

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Enzo Maresca is “ready and waiting” to take over from Pep Guardiola this summer if, as many in football circles increasingly believe, the Manchester City boss decides to call time on his glittering spell at the Etihad.

Guardiola is keeping his cards characteristically close to his chest when it comes to a decision over whether to see out the two-year contract he signed in 2025. The i Paper has been told, however, that City’s succession planning has seen them sound out Maresca – to the extent that the former Chelsea boss is now seen as “off limits” by other top Premier League and European clubs who are searching for a manager.

Succession planning has been one of the areas City have become a market leader in, with several sources telling The i Paper that should Guardiola go this summer, there are plans in place beyond the next appointment.

One source close to the club said that Vincent Kompany being appointed manager in a few years, after Maresca has steadied a transitional City side, is “inevitable”.

After an inauspicious start to life in management at Burnley, Kompany has created one of the most exhilarating teams to watch in Europe at Bayern Munich. While sources stressed he will not want to leave Munich yet, given his Bavarian project is still in its infancy, City will “always be appealing”.

Kompany had a statue erected outside the Etihad Stadium in recognition of the role the former club captain had in City’s rise.

Guardiola, arguably the greatest manager of all time, can make a decision whenever he wants – he has earned that right. If there is even a chance he stays, City will hold on for as long as possible.

The uncertainty around Guardiola is nothing new. All season there have been rumblings that he believes his legacy has been cemented and, having carried the project into a new phase that has seen his Treble-winning side replaced by a younger, hungrier group who can challenge for the Champions League again, it is time to hand over the reins.

But what does feel new is some of the jockeying for position ahead of a managerial market that will see Manchester United, Chelsea and Real Madrid appoint new managers this summer. City and Liverpool – who retain confidence in Arne Slot for the moment – could yet join the table while there will be international jobs vacant after the World Cup.

An accomplished, experienced and trophy-winning manager like Maresca would be assumed by many to be in the mix for a many of those roles but – according to at least one top-flight executive involved in this space – he is “Manchester City’s man” if Guardiola goes.

There is a logic to it. As a former Guardiola apprentice at City, he is familiar with the structure and set-up at the Etihad. He worked in the academy and then as part of Guardiola’s backroom set-up for three years and is understood to be close to Hugo Viana, City’s sporting director.

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He is also keen on the role and available, even if the terms of his exit from Chelsea mean that there would need to be negotiations between City and the Blues to agree compensation. That is not expected to be a major factor preventing him from making the move if Guardiola goes, though.

It feels like the obvious move – but with Guardiola, you just never know. Earlier this year City were more confident he would stay until 2027 and he has reacted with incredulity to questions about his future in recent months. But the fact he is yet to nail his colours to the mast is probably not good news.

Maresca is not the only one waiting with bated breath.

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Whatever happens now, this season has been a sensation for Millwall; no higher league finish since 1990, Teddy Sheringham, Tony Cascarino and all that. Whatever happens now, they have muscled in with the parachute payment crowd and the free spenders. Whatever happens now, Alex Neil has outperformed all optimistic expectations, let alone the reasonable ones.

Whatever happens now, there is something to build upon and whatever happens now something significant has already been built. John Berylson’s tragic passing in 2023 could have left a vacuum in south London. Whatever happens now, his son James has done his father proud in every way.

And whatever happens now is the most exciting bit of all. Not for 22 years has Millwall’s Championship season extended beyond 46 matches. The play-offs have one certainty: to give you the worst or best day of your football season. So make peace with it and just dream your own dream.

Millwall are still being undervalued, for no good reason. They finished third in the Championship. They lost once away from home against the top eight in the division (Coventry City, in January).

Over the final 30 matches of the regular season, they sat a point off the top. The only reason to write them off is because you never expected them to be there at all and you haven’t really processed it yet.

It is the result of a masterclass in tactical coaching from Neil, who found a formula that worked and has maximised its advantages. Millwall ranked 17th of 24 for possession and 22nd for completed passes but played the highest percentage of their passes forward and recorded the most crosses and accurate crosses.

There is a Millwall type of goal: win possession in their own half, two quick passes, a winger set free and a cross for an onrushing forward. They were also third for set-piece goals. They are direct and they are exciting and that works here because it is exactly what their supporters want to see.

It also works because Millwall have been excellent at soaking up pressure. Jake Cooper is a modern club legend, named Player of the Year and part of a defence that kept the most clean sheets in the Championship. Tristan Crama, equally massive and equally dependable, sits next to Cooper.

This can’t happen without effective squad-building. Between January and August 2025, Millwall received the three highest transfer fees in the club’s history. They effectively supercharged a player trading model, reinvesting by signing five players for fees last summer, all 25 or below.

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Six of their eight players with more than 30 league starts this season are still aged 24 or under. It’s the fifth lowest average age with a bottom-half wage bill finishing third – what’s not to like?

“What’s not to like?” is a loaded question where Millwall are concerned. There are things that you have heard about elements of the fanbase and there are things that you may well have seen for yourself. Deliberately ignoring those issues is counterproductive.

But there are two important things to say here. The first is that I haven’t been inside a club that does better work – earlier, harder, more groundbreaking – to try to erode that reputation, to educate and to (where necessary) remove those who refuse to abide by the principles of anti-discrimination. They set up the first anti-discriminatory body at an English football club in 1994 and they continue to lead the way. You don’t have to believe that, but it’s true.

Secondly, the pantomime elements – booing injured players, taunting opposition supporters, vitriol towards officials – is prevalent at lots of football clubs and barely merits mention at any of them. And where the line is crossed, it reflects a football problem not a Millwall problem and a societal problem not a football problem.

Off the pitch has been exciting for a long while. Last year, Millwall purchased the freehold of the club’s training ground, allowing greater investment in facilities to bring the club to the upper level of the Championship.

Hospitality areas in the stadium are being upgraded and their home itself is now safe after years of campaigning. It will form part of the greater New Bermondsey regeneration project to transform an area of inner-city, industrial south London.

Now football is going hand in hand with the rest and life is rosy enough that it’s hard to trust it at all. As Nick Hart of the Achtung Millwall podcast jokes, exciting and fun are words that he’s never really associated with Millwall before. The halcyon days don’t always have to exist in the past.

Millwall won’t ever be popular. They can make their peace with that and they can continue to make it their niche. If it means that everyone else overlooks the excellent stuff – the progress, the growth, the investment in infrastructure and the work of a family to honour a man they lost – then it will only help them. Millwall are brilliantly run, brilliantly managed and brilliantly positioned to make the next step.

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EMIRATES – The roar and red mist that thrust Arsenal into their biggest night since this stadium was built were never just a carnival hangover from the night before. Whatever torturous days lie in store for England’s champions-elect, 90 minutes are all that stand between them and glory: European glory at that. Flights booked, passports ready: they are heading for Budapest.

It always mattered immeasurably. But it mattered more in the month they are dreaming of ending a separate two decades of heartache. On overcast north London evenings like this, the air full of gloom and damp, the usual fear of impending clouds were banished for a moment, hopes of another unlikely triumph fuelled by Manchester City’s Merseyside implosion.

You will have heard the aspersions about this Arsenal side: that they are incapable of getting over the line, powerless to break out of stale, familiar patterns. Perhaps you will have heard there are misconceptions about Atletico Madrid too, that they are nothing like the Diego Simeone set-ups of old. If not, then they still do a frustratingly good impression.

To put an end to this bloody, two-legged war of attrition, a moment seized, and a prayer answered from Bukayo Saka, who knelt on the pitch after a breakthrough created again by Viktor Gyokeres.

In answer to the naysayers, only four Premier League players have scored more goals than Gyokeres all season. That will surprise a few people, but it was his build-up play that discombobulated Atletico enough to allow Leandro Trossard’s strike to be parried into Saka’s feet by Jan Oblak.

Criticisms have not just been levelled at Gyokeres, who admittedly blazed his own best chance over the bar. Almost every one of these players has been doubted, on occasion vilified. Bottlers. Chokers. How about: Champions League finalists.

It could not have happened without Gabriel’s inch-perfect challenge denying Giuliano Simeone once he had all but beaten David Raya. Atletico came at them relentlessly. It was far from certain that Mikel Arteta’s courage would be repaid, keeping faith with the adventurous Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ricardo Calafiori.

At the perfect time of year, bravery and boldness are reaping unthinkable rewards. Lewis-Skelly the born-again midfielder did some of his best work in the tussles with Julian Alvarez, a player Arteta plans to lure to the Emirates this summer.

Before that, Paris Saint-Germain or Bayern Munich lie in wait. The victors of this tie knew they would travel to Hungary as unfancied underdogs. Arsenal showed they possess the street smarts to at least make it a contest.

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Atletico had commenced the hostilities by filing a Uefa complaint over supporters setting off fireworks outside the team hotel in the early hours. That was about as sparkling as it was likely to get. If PSG vs Bayern was hailed as one of the greatest ever semi-finals, some thought this had all the ingredients to turn into one of the worst. Yet these are the two biggest clubs never to have been crowned European champions – more breath was held here than anywhere else.   

It could be felt in the flailing wrath of Simeone, encroaching onto the pitch and provoking Arsenal fans throughout. There is already enough edginess built into the fabric here, not helped by a burning sense of injustice. Some still believe that final 20 years ago would not have been lost to Barcelona without an early Jens Lehmann red.

With one last push, these are ghosts that can be buried forever. These are the nights that make or break history. Who would have thought it would all be superseded by the visit of Burnley in a fortnight’s time?

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In the spirit of a result that bore little relation to the data we might be excused a speculative punt regarding the meaning of it all. Was this some kind of cosmic intervention, perhaps a godlike arm reaching down from Delphi to nudge the title and Pep Guardiola away from Manchester?

Any who switched to the snooker at half-time would have been baffled by a finale that required Manchester City to score twice late on to take a point from a contest they dominated.

The absence of jeopardy was marked during a supine first half of Evertonian survivalism which revived the crushing sense of inevitably that accompanied City’s peak Pep period.

That this evolving iteration of the Guardiola model can throw up results like this from a seemingly impregnable position begs the question: is something seismic upon us?

Ten years and counting is a long time for any coach to spend at one club, and not just any club. Guardiola is football’s supreme being, one of the great innovators who, powered by a nation state, married aesthetics and power to an irresistible degree.

For 45 minutes at the Hill Dickinson Stadium it appeared this iteration might be the best yet, a front three of Jeremy Doku, Erling Haaland and Antoine Semenyo supplied by the waspish prompts of late-phase Bernardo Silva and Rayan Cherki, forcing Everton into a classic Moyesian rearguard.

Peak City might have cracked half a dozen to tighten their grip around Arsenal’s throat. Yet there is a creeping unreliability, even vulnerability about this ensemble that can be exposed if the opposition sets about them as Everton did, which in turn might hint at a similar fragility in the gaffer.

Was it my imagination or was Guardiola weirdly sanguine about the surrender of two points and the initiative in a title duel that looked to be heading towards a seventh coronation in 10 years? Like, whatever happens, he is working to a timetable that only he knows.

Even Michael Keane’s hooligan lunge that might have snapped Doku’s ankle in two was left to others to deconstruct. “Your pundits can say it,” was all Guardiola could muster.

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All of this is playing out against the backdrop of the inquiry into the financial architecture that transformed City and re-ordered the nature of competition in the Premier League.

City deny any financial wrongdoing in a case that at the very least calls into question the Premier League’s administration of a competition sold as world leading.

Guardiola rightly points out that the reputational damage is already done to his fine team. Supporters of other clubs are adjusted to the mind-bending sums that took a fading relic of old football to the vanguard of the new.

They don’t need a tribunal to pass judgment on the legality of the investments made. Either way the game has been warped by the inequalities that made City the team they are.

As Jose Mourinho gleefully pointed out in a discussion last week of Guardiola’s place in history, the beauty of his teams are undeniable, but, at City at least, he is benefitting from a structure that few in the history of the game have enjoyed.

The narrative around City, fuelled to a large degree by the failure of the Premier League to conclude their investigation into 130 charges of financial impropriety, inevitably colours the Guardiola epoch, casting doubt on the validity of his work.

He is reconciled to this of course, and, persuaded by assurances from the owners that compliance with the regulations has always been met, has carried on regardless.

However, as the weeks and months drag on, you wonder how long Guardiola can keep the energy going, and moments like Monday serve up snippets, tiny shifts in behaviour and attitude that invite us to wonder if something more fundamental is in the wind.

The draw at Everton has certainly tilted the momentum back towards Arsenal. City face Brentford on Saturday night knowing the title is out of their hands, a prospect as unthinkable at half time on Monday as the idea Pep might walk.

Yet, as that result reminds us, little is as it seems in this game.

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Public tirades often signal the beginning of the end for football managers, the parting shot of a civil war only going one way. That is not the case for Richie Wellens at Leyton Orient.

The 46-year-old unleashed a remarkable seven-minute scolding of his players on Saturday for two reasons. He has enough credit for another season in charge, and because he knows he won’t be coaching a good number of this squad when he does.

Wellens was in no mood to celebrate despite Orient escaping relegation. He berated his players for passing it around the back towards the end of the 2-2 draw with Burton, which secured their League One status by three points after Exeter City lost to Bradford City.

And that was just the start. Wellens said “one year of my management career has been wasted by the players”, called the squad “really, really weak” and claimed they “served up rubbish”. He then apologised to the supporters. “They deserve to be clapped,” he said. “But then don’t be celebrating with your family. Get off the pitch, it’s been an embarrassing season.”

"Get off the pitch, it's been an embarrassing season"

Leyton Orient boss Richie Wellens was angry at his players for celebrating avoiding relegation on the final day. pic.twitter.com/ecUXXx7V5D

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) May 3, 2026

The most salient point of his outburst was around recruitment. Last year, after Orient lost the play-off final to Charlton Athletic, Wellens called that group of players “special”, “one of the best I have ever worked with as a player of manager”.

Orient’s poor recruitment

Former director of football Martin Ling also hailed the impact of their loan players in 2024-25, including Jamie Donley and Josh Keeley from Tottenham Hotspur. Charlie Kelman scored 21 league goals on loan from Queens Park Rangers.

In 2025-26, the opposite effect. No loanees shone, further proving the EFL is a roll-of-the-dice game of loans where there is rarely a middle ground. In 12 months, Orient went from free-scoring and winning regularly to leaky and shot-shy, with fans falling out of love with who they were watching.

“Our supporters last year had songs for about 10 players, we have songs for two players this year,” Wellens pointed out.

Had it not been for striker Dom Ballard, everyone at the club knows what would have happened. Rarely does a club who finishes 20th also boast the league’s player of the season, but the 21-year-old collected the EFL award, Young Player of the Season, and the Golden Boot with 23 goals.

A player on the up, Ballard’s standout campaign amid Orient’s regression – or as one supporter called him on social media, their diamond in a pile of manure – means the club’s fans are already mentally preparing for life after the forward, who reportedly has Wrexham among his suitors.

Ballard’s future

Wellens insisted Orient want to keep Ballard but admitted it is possible chairman Nigel Travis will allow him to leave for the right fee.

Regardless, a summer of upheaval looks inevitable. With defender Dan Happe and midfielder Theo Archibald among the players out of contract, and others set to be sold, a refresh could give the Orient boss the two things he craves: more athleticism and more character.

That is not easily bought. The fear will be that the scars of this season, coupled with Ballard’s potential departure, undo the hard work that saw Wellens take the club from mid-table in League Two to a game away from the Championship.

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‘The fanbase is divided’

The rant has also split supporters. “Many are saying, ‘good on him’ for his honesty on a squad which has clearly underperformed, but at the same time much of the fanbase saying Richie must assume some responsibility for this season’s form,” Steve Nussbaum, host of Orient Outlook podcast with Paul Levy, tells The i Paper.

Heading into a fifth full season in charge, it will be on Wellens – and whoever he may have at his disposal – to prove one step back hasn’t obliterated those three taken forward. Or else this tirade would have been the early death knell after all.

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Everton 3-3 Man City (Barry 68′, 81, O’Brien 73 | Doku 43′, 90+7, Haaland 83′)

HILL DICKINSON STADIUM — You can play for 20 more years in this new stadium and you will struggle to fit as much mania into a single half. It ended, as is the modern way, with neither team really happy and half of the Everton supporters clapping while the rest chanted that the Premier League was “corrupt as f–k”. Oh, and the Premier League title race has twisted again too. Breathe deeply – we’ll be going again soon.

Before Spursy and the modern concept of Arsenal lacking bottle in title races, there was “Typical City”. Go back to the 1990s, and Manchester City were the original club that could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, or so their supporters would tell you. It’s been a dormant concept for a while, thanks to Pep Guardiola. Until now, perhaps.

The common wisdom, despite all those Arsenal doubts, is that it’s always better to have the points on the board and be chased. It seemed especially true this season, because of the goal difference equation. Arsenal watched madness unfold and each Everton goal was their own victory.

Typical title race rules were off the table. No longer was it enough for a team to try and win. They must consider the margin of their victory, whether to push or hold, risking the comparative calamity of dropping two points in search of two goals. Perhaps that does make the mind play tricks and very good footballers do very stupid things.

Manchester City were coasting. They had dominated the game’s opening passages, completing 98 passes in the final third to Everton’s three in the first 20 minutes. They huffed and puffed for a little while, finding ways not to score until they did. Jeremy Doku doesn’t score often enough and he scores with his left foot once in a blue moon.

Because, with a one-goal lead, City still trailed Arsenal by three goals – did that become a factor? Certainly wide spaces opened in midfield, one pass freeing Iliman Ndiaye or Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. Gianluigi Donnarumma had already made a save to deny Ndiaye and a block to stop a cross to Beto. You wanted to shake the whole team and ask whether they wanted to just chill out a bit.

Everton’s initial response was one of physical assault. If you can’t catch them, kick them. Michael Keane was fortunate not to have a yellow card upgraded for a hack on Doku. Beto left one on Marc Guehi, so obvious that it prompted a response from City players along the lines of “Are you alright mate?”

The crowd played its part, acting with audible righteous anger every time an Everton player had a free-kick given against them for committing an obvious foul. It must be exhausting, all this performative rage. It starts with a moan about a referee and ends with you booing a throw-in and screaming handball when an opposition player gets hit in the face.

And it did seem to rattle City, knocking them off their path and onto the margins of sense and reason. Suddenly there’s seven players caught up the pitch. Suddenly England’s best central defender is playing the worst backpass of his career. Suddenly international-class midfielders are playing the sort of passes that makes you clap a young kid at training so they don’t beat themselves up about it.

Read more

• Pete Hall: Man City’s empty seats are a wake-up call for English football
• Kevin Garside: The cautionary tale of Phil Foden

Manchester City are not finished just yet of course. There was enough spirit in the comeback to persuade you of that. Doku’s second goal, with Donnarumma playing as auxiliary striker, possessed the quality and drama to persuade you they’re still fighting. But it is out of their hands and they had it.

Presumably another twist will be along soon, because that’s just how this silly Premier League season is going to go. But until then, swallow your narrative whole. Turn those expectations upside down. Stop making conclusions or even tentative predictions because you’ll only look stupid anyway.

Because none of this is normal. Arsenal are supposed to be the ones who gulp and fret and try to figure out on the job how to play it right. Manchester City, with this manager, are supposed to be the relentless machine, floating above the psychodrama rather than writing their own chapter. This one is Arsenal’s to lose again. Three more wins will do it.

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He is the cartoon villain of the piece, football’s black-clad master of the dark arts, the man who got David Beckham sent off in Saint-Etienne all those years ago.

Beyond the caricature, though, Diego Simeone – the man whose Atletico Madrid side stand between Arsenal and the Champions League final on Tuesday – is a man who leaves a lasting mark on the players he works with.

Just ask former Barnsley player Hugo Colace. Now a coach himself, the 42-year-old Argentine spent only six months with Simeone during his time leading Estudiantes de La Plata two decades ago. Yet, it was enough to effect a “360-degree change” in Colace.

“He changed my mentality, the way I lived,” Colace tells The i Paper.

“He changed the way I played. He gave me discipline. I’d been a more tactical, positional midfield player; he made me more aggressive, more intense, more box to box.

“The main point is the intensity, day after day, because it’s not only in the game but in the week – you train hard every single day.”

Today, at 56, Simeone is no different, with one source at Atletico noting that he still “leaves nothing behind” on the training ground each day – an unrelenting approach that his players have no option but to follow.

It was at Estudiantes in 2006 that Simeone first showcased his coaching gifts by leading the club to their first league title in 23 years after defeating Boca Juniors 2-1 in the final.

Estudiantes’ best years had come in the late 1960s when they played a notorious two-legged Intercontinental Cup final against Manchester United in 1968, featuring red cards for Nobby Stiles and George Best.

In their midfield was Carlos Bilardo, later coach of Argentina’s 1986 World Cup-winning team, and a player described as “an expert in immobilising his opponent”.

The same might be said of Atletico, given the outstanding defensive organisation and discipline that have helped take them to the cusp of Simeone’s third Champions League final with the Rojiblancos. 

Yet, as Colace attests, Simeone has an appreciation of good football too.

Colace had come through the ranks of Argentinos Juniors, Diego Maradona’s first club, as a teenager.

As a result, Simeone would tell him: “Come on, Hugo, Maradona and [Fernando] Redondo were born there, if you come from that club, you can’t play a bad pass.”

Twenty years on, Simeone shows similar admiration for Antoine Griezmann, Atleti’s floating French attacker who was their biggest threat in the first leg.

Simeone called him “a genius” when they sat on the dais together at a recent press conference following the announcement of Griezmann’s summer departure for MLS side Orlando City.

That said, for all the mutual respect – and the pair have holidayed together with their families – Griezmann has said their conversations seldom stray beyond football.

As for Colace, the Simeone experience set him up to shine in the Championship with Barnsley.

He arrived in south Yorkshire fresh from a loan spell at Brazilian club Flamengo, swapping the Maracana for Oakwell, where he hit the ground running.

“Thanks to Simeone’s intensity I was able to do well at Barnsley,” says Colace, who collected the club’s player of the year award in 2009-10 when, under manager Mark Robins, he scored seven league goals from midfield.

Colace was back at Oakwell on Saturday to watch their 3-1 loss to Stockport County in Conor Hourihane’s last match as manager.

The connection he forged with the club as a player means that “it’s the place in the world that I dream of returning to as coach”.

Read more

• Kevin Garside: Arne Slot is in denial
• Kat Lucas: Tottenham’s modern-day Klinsmann has salvaged their season

Once captain of an Argentina Under-20 team including Javier Mascherano, Carlos Tevez and Pablo Zabaleta, Colace played in 10 countries, ending his career in Wales with Bangor City, where he subsequently faced a managerial baptism of fire.

Bangor were in the Welsh second tier, Cymru North, but after Italian owner Domenico Serafino disappeared, the club were suspended from the division.

In 2022, with players unpaid for months, they withdrew from the league altogether.

“Overnight he vanished and left the club with nothing,” Colace says.

“My assistant Riccardo [Pellegrini] and I had to do everything – we had to buy food for the players, clean the club buildings, try to find sponsors.”

While his coaching badges carry the stamp of the English FA, Simeone’s influence remains strong – right down to his black attire on the touchline during his recent spell coaching Atletico Tucuman in his home country.

Now, however, this Simeone disciple is back in the UK, and will be at the Emirates for Tuesday’s semi-final second leg.

While El Cholo aims for a Champions League final in Budapest, though, Colace is dreaming of Barnsley.

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So Arne Slot knows what needs to be done to restore the Liverpool supremacy next season. He wouldn’t share his thoughts with the media, which is, perhaps, as well since the commentary he did offer bore little scrutiny.

Like many a coach in defeat, Slot’s view of the loss to Manchester United was at variance with reality. He spoke of the control Liverpool exerted after the break yet made no mention of the gifts presented by United that contributed directly to both their goals, and seemed to forget that Liverpool were two down at the break, a deficit that should have been wider.

That great custodian of Liverpool’s soul, Jamie Carragher, was incandescent about the condescension of Liverpool players doing performative keepie-uppies in the tunnel beforehand. In victory, that kind of hauteur is seen as an expression of confidence. In defeat, it revealed to Carragher a lack of focus and seriousness.

As a member of the Liverpool team that once turned up to an FA Cup final against United in white suits, Carragher has experience of the divine madness that persuades a group of cocky ballers it need only turn up to win.

The control of which Slot was so proud was not unique to them. It is a characteristic afforded by a porous United midfield with significant structural failings. Michael Carrick has clearly introduced a unity of purpose and offensive organisation, but he can do little about the inability of Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes to track back, particularly in the latter stages of matches.

So Liverpool, like Brentford a week prior, had control of the pitch in the second half, and with the help of misplaced passes from Amad Diallo and another from keeper Senne Lammens, looked the more likely winners until the remarkable Kobbie Mainoo did his thing.

This allowed Slot to gloss over his contribution to the loss, which included his eccentric preference for career midfielders at right-back and his distrust of his signature signing at left-back, not to mention his reluctance to unleash teenage phenom Rio Ngumoha.

On this occasion Curtis Jones traded places with Dominik Szoboszlai for the job of being Trent Alexander-Arnold, whilst the player signed to replace Alexander-Arnold at right-back, Jeremie Frimpong, was again deputising for the injured Mohamed Salah. Conor Bradley’s injury, one of many, is not helping, but that does not excuse Frimpong’s repeated deployment higher up the pitch

On the left side Slot’s preference for outgoing Andy Robertson over Milos Kerkez in big matches, was a gift to United, serving as rehab for the out-of-form Bryan Mbeumo down United’s right, from where the opening goals resulted.

The loss of the cursed Alexander Isak to a groin strain in training was an obvious blow to a team already deprived of Hugo Ekitike, but Liverpool’s attack was not what cost them. Over and above the perplexing choices at right back, Slot is stuck with centre halves too easily pulled out of shape by United’s rapid counters.

Virgil van Dijk appears to have slowed overnight as if the extra coin he was offered last summer is being carried in his boots. Ibrahima Konate was never the quickest, but when Liverpool had it all their own way in Slot’s first term, he was not exposed as he is now.

During those rapid first-half counters, Liverpool’s rearguard could not cope. It was only United’s own flaws, notably the gap in front of defence where Casemiro should have been, that allowed Liverpool enough of the ball to convince Slot his team had powerful agency.

Read more

• Pete Hall: Man Utd finally have four players to build around
• Daniel Storey: My verdict on every Premier League team after Gameweek 35

It is true that Liverpool would have been improved by the availability of Isak and Ekitike up front and Alisson Becker in goal. It is also the case that last summer’s influx, plus the contract extensions to Salah and Van Dijk have created, not solved problems.

Slot looked a genius last term when the team picked itself and Manchester City were negotiating the diminution of Kevin De Bruyne and the loss of Rodri. At times this season Slot has looked overwhelmed if not out of his depth.

The result at Old Trafford to a capricious United could have been worse not better had Fernandes made it three before the break. Instead of sophistry, presenting the outcome as somehow unjust or unrepresentive, Slot needs to be honest with himself. The table does not lie. Neither should he.

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Aston Villa 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur (Buendia 90+6 | Gallagher 12’, Richarlison 25’)

VILLA PARK – Had you not watched a minute of this season’s Premier League and were told one of these teams were in a relegation dog-fight, and the other had all but confirmed Champions League football, you would have believed it. You might not have guessed which was which.

No real glory will be gleamed from survival, if Tottenham do get over the line. Yet for once, they were handed all the cards, courtesy of West Ham’s meek surrender at Brentford and Aston Villa’s weakened XI. Mind you, there is looking a gift horse in the mouth and there is still a danger of being gnashed to pieces. The universe owed Roberto De Zerbi this one.

Until now every aspect of his reign had felt fatefully cruel: the deflection at Sunderland, Brighton’s late equaliser, Xavi Simons’ ACL. Despair had become acceptance, that bubbled into something like hope, before crashing back down to its original form.

There is no translation for the noise that erupted from the visiting end at Villa Park after two goals in the first 25 minutes. Whatever you call it, the feeling had been long forgotten. Tottenham away, ole ole.   

A stunning goal from Conor Gallagher has Tottenham Hotspur ahead

Watch live on TNT Sports and HBO Max! pic.twitter.com/XaOXaYSJjy

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 3, 2026

The technique was unlikely, the hero even more so. Conor Gallagher, whose start to north London life has been utter misery, peeled away from his strike at the edge of the box in as heady a disbelief as a Villa midfield shorn of its star power.

Unai Emery has a European semi-final first leg to avenge but the wrath of 40,000 Villains suggested they did not view this capitulation in the same way, Tyrone Mings dithering and Ross Barkley repeatedly dispossessed. By the hour mark Morgan Rogers had a passing accuracy rate of just 50 per cent.

But the most unrecognisable aspect in all this was Spurs’ dynamism. In spite of Xavi’s injury, which threatened to derail De Zerbi’s new tempo, it comes back to that word again – hope. It was to be found in their Brazilian No 9.

Richarlison grabs a second for Tottenham Hotspur and what a huge goal that could prove to be

Watch live on TNT Sports and HBO Max. pic.twitter.com/q1ly6AeE0y

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 3, 2026

In the last half-century, whenever Tottenham have looked in genuine danger of relegation, it has never been for want of a goalscoring saviour.

In 1994, when they only confirmed their top-flight status in May, it was Teddy Sheringham. Four years later, Jurgen Klinsmann returned to yank them away from trouble.

Richarlison may not be considered in that pantheon. However, he is the closest thing today’s squad have to a proper firefighter. Once he had buried Mathys Tel’s cross for the second, he sunk to his knees for what might become the defining image of this torturous Tottenham campaign. It made the knock he suffered at the very end feel particularly brutal.

De Zerbi is managing an unprecedented injury crisis and worse, a kind of spiritual emergency. Richarlison’s 31st goal over four seasons is a reflection of his own injuries and struggles for consistency – Klinsmann, for perspective, hit 38 in 18 months over two spells.

Read more

• Kat Lucas: The strange case of Tottenham’s forgotten man
• Daniel Storey: Arsenal’s great trick, West Ham’s big issue and Slot can’t be trusted

There is no serious analysis to be had in pondering why a team missing six of its attackers have struggled for goals. That is why Spurs are in this mess – before kick-off they averaged around 1.2 per game, lower than the Luton side relegated in 2024 and Leicester who went down in 2023 (both 1.3).

Whatever De Zerbi has locked into, who better to exemplify the change than Randal Kolo Muani – serenaded at the end of one of his best performances in a Spurs shirt.

West Ham must concede that their rivals’ new-found optimism – undimmed as it was by Emi Buendia’s late header – was partly of their own making. That belief is going to be even more valuable than the three points.

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INTRO

Here is one piece of analysis on each of the top flight clubs who played this weekend (in reverse table order)…

This weekend’s results

• Leeds 3-1 Burnley
• Brentford 3-0 West Ham
• Newcastle 3-1 Brighton
• Wolves 1-1 Sunderland
• Arsenal 3-0 Fulham
• Bournemouth 3-0 Crystal Palace
• Man Utd 3-2 Liverpool
• Aston Villa 1-2 Tottenham

The day Edwards lost the Wolves fans

Rob Edwards has been dealt a pretty bad hand. Some of the broken elements within Wolves’ hierarchy have been removed, but clearly the full impact of those changes has not been felt because this season is dragging on. And it’s dragging Edwards down.

On Saturday, between Wolves’ equaliser in the 54th minute and a minute before the end, Edwards made one substitution and it was arguably a defensive one. Then in the final minute he took off the only striker. Wolves drew 1-1 and it barely felt like they gave it a go.

That’s dangerous at Molineux right now. They are angry, bitter and are prepared to be nasty. Their world is already too small for them to cope; they don’t need a manager who squanders any hope of a win with perceived negativity. The chants labelled Edwards a “w**ker” as he went down the tunnel. Ouch.

Burnley go back to the drawing board

What a thoroughly weird season for Burnley and those who make the decisions in its supposed best interests. We worried that Scott Parker would struggle in the Premier League, so the club watched him struggle, gave him barely any meaningful help in the transfer market and then failed to make a change with Burnley sinking without trace.

Fine, you think, Parker is a very effective manager at getting clubs back into the top flight. So the club waited until relegation had been confirmed and then Parker left. Rather than give themselves a chance midseason – as many of the clubs above them did – Burnley accepted their fate and made their move with the game finished.

So now they have a squad presumably low on morale, a club that needs a guarantee manager having got rid of the closest thing they had to one and must presumably take a gamble on a new way of playing. Time to find another Vincent Kompany, basically. And it might be Craig Bellamy, his apprentice.

West Ham’s midfield looks too skewed

It was interesting to hear West Ham supporters criticising Nuno Espirito Santo after the defeat at Brentford for his tactical naivety. I don’t think that’s the issue at all.

Firstly, this was the ultimate fine-margin match: disallowed goal for a marginal offside and the woodwork hit three times. But my issue is how open West Ham’s last two games have felt because that’s not how Nuno usually operates.

West Ham played with Taty Castellanos and Pablo Fornals up front, Crysencio Summerville and Jarrod Bowen wide and a midfield pair of Matheus Fernandes and Tomas Soucek in midfield. Now Fernandes is excellent, but you want him higher up the pitch to play passes through the lines. And if he’s doing that, you’re effectively picking a one-man midfield consisting of a fairly immobile Soucek.

Perhaps Nuno reasons that roll-the-dice football is the way to get points now. But it’s risky, it didn’t work and next they have Arsenal.

Now there is life at Tottenham

The fixtures now seem to have fallen deliciously for Tottenham. They followed up a grubby victory against the worst team in the league with a serene win against a team doing their best impression of Wolves.

Tottenham were better, even if it was signposted by their opponents. The team still lacks creativity with all the injuries, but there is endeavour and energy at last. Conor Gallagher could play higher up the pitch and that suited. Richarlison is exactly the type of striker you want in a battle because he treats every tiny setback as a personal affront and vendetta. They were the two goalscorers.

Richarlison grabs a second for Tottenham Hotspur and what a huge goal that could prove to be

Watch live on TNT Sports and HBO Max. pic.twitter.com/q1ly6AeE0y

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 3, 2026

And now Spurs have a chance to keep their head above water, with West Ham facing Arsenal next weekend while a now safe Leeds come to north London. The loudest sirens have been quelled for a few days.

Nottingham Forest

Play Chelsea on Monday afternoon.

Crystal Palace have rightly thrown in the towel

“I think today the tank was empty,” Oliver Glasner said after the game. “The players tried and again I think the second half was much better, but in the first it was just too much, we couldn’t get the turnaround from Thursday evening.”

I think he’s broadly right apart from the bit about players trying. Crystal Palace’s Premier League performance doesn’t matter a jot now because they are two games away from a European trophy and you can see that on the pitch.

Jefferson Lerma puts the ball into his own net against his former club! pic.twitter.com/wkK6oF1u5A

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 3, 2026

The good news for the top flight is that both title challengers still have to play Palace, so nobody gets an advantage. But Glasner would likely have rested 10 players if he had the squad depth. And rightly so.

Farke finally gets his flowers at Leeds

It hasn’t always been easy to be Daniel Farke this season. His own reputation – two failed Premier League relegation battles – and the psychodrama of supporting Leeds United created an environment in which 2025-26 and his tenure felt destined to end badly. Throughout his time at Elland Road, Farke has had to deal with cynicism and doubt.

And now both of those have been emphatically proven wrong. The two home fixtures against Burnley and Wolves were always likely to provide a buffer, but Leeds have won eight (and drawn one) of their 11 home games against teams outside the top eight. That is the backbone of their survival.

Leeds rank ninth in the Premier League over the second half of the season. Their owners can now invest in the squad and manager and the stadium work can continue in earnest. It’s a good time to call this club home.

Newcastle’s post-match photos return

To call this good timing for a home win is a little much; that would probably have been three weeks ago. But with Yasir Al-Rumayyan in town for talks about Newcastle’s future that involved some presumably pointed questions towards Eddie Howe, he was pictured in the middle of the post-match dressing room photo.

Most interesting was the reaction to it amongst the fanbase online. Some felt it inappropriate to celebrate being 13th in the league quite so readily. Others point out Nick Woltemade’s smile-less face on the fringes. A few were still wondering how Yoane Wissa had managed to miss another good chance.

It’s rare to see Howe concede so honestly that the pressure had been affecting his sleep and pre-match preparation. But if the reports that he will keep his job next season are true, it’s time to unite a fanbase in disagreement about stick or twist.

Sunderland can have no complaints about Ballard’s red card

You can disagree with the notion that pulling someone’s hair is automatically considered violent conduct and thus will result in a red card, although I think it’s a flawed argument. You can act annoyed and surprised when a player on your team is punished for “only a slight pull”.

But if you’re a Premier League footballer, you know the rules now because you have seen peers sent off for the same thing.

So if you go up for an aerial duel, as Dan Ballard did on Saturday, do you not have the presence of mind to avoid pulling a bloke’s hair? Ballard acted innocent and confused; it was a cut and (blow) dry case.

Everton

Play Manchester City on Monday night.

Illness renders Fulham’s energy helpless

Arsenal won’t mind, but Fulham were in no fit state to compete on Saturday teatime. A virus had laid a number of players low. The lack of energy was a) understandable and b) obvious in two particular positions:

1) Antonee Robinson’s decline is a little sad, but losing Ryan Sessegnon changes this team because the lack of threat down the left allowed Bukayo Saka to stay high up the pitch and have a lovely time in the process. Even when Robinson did provide crosses into the box, most were poorly directed.

2) Harrison Reed and Sasa Lukic is not a combination that works well (which is probably why they haven’t started a league game together in more than two years). Lukic stayed a little too deep and so became one-dimensional. Reed doesn’t win the ball often enough and Fulham had too little possession and territory for him to be active enough with it.

Chelsea

Play Nottingham Forest on Monday afternoon.

Brighton’s new revelation

Jack Hinshelwood turned 21 a few weeks ago and is already established at Premier League level; so far, so impressive. He’s also – and this is a hot take – potentially the most fascinating player in the division for how his next three years pan out.

So this season, only including starts and only including the Premier League, Hinshelwood has been picked as a right-back, a holding midfielder, a regulation central midfielder and as an advanced attacking central midfielder. Last season he was also picked to start at left-back and as a striker.

Hinshelwood is like the inverted full-backs revolution turned up to 11. As a novice, the assumption is that you learn on the job in one role. Hinshelwood has four or five and he’s being moved higher up the pitch because his composure, passing and shooting is improving at a phenomenal rate.

Brentford’s marvellous season continues

Brentford still have a decent shot at Champions League football, which is an extraordinary thing to be writing about Keith Andrews’ first season as a football manager. Facing Liverpool and Manchester City in their final three league games isn’t ideal, but Brentford are more likely than not to make Europe for the first time in their history.

It has been platformed by a home record that Andrews deserves enormous credit for maintaining. Only Arsenal, Manchester City and Bournemouth have lost fewer home games in the Premier League this season. Only Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle have scored more home goals, a ludicrous statistic given the loss of Bryan Mbeumo and Wissa.

And here’s the best statistic. Brentford have now scored three or more goals in seven home league games this season. That’s more than every single Premier League side bar Manchester City (who have done it once more than Andrews’ side). Phenomenal.

Bournemouth are brilliant fun

When Andoni Iraola announced his departure, working alongside the club rather than taking passive aggressive shots at it in public, I wondered whether that might spur Bournemouth on to give Iraola the perfect send-off and provide European football for the first time as the present for those left behind. They haven’t lost since.

Bournemouth probably only need six points from their remaining three matches to finish sixth. They can beat Fulham and they can beat Forest on the final day, presuming the home team don’t need anything. But then this Bournemouth can beat anyone because they defend smartly, are combative in midfield and are exceptional at finding space and creating chances.

Rayan adds Bournemouth's third! pic.twitter.com/eTGi6clzBh

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 3, 2026

And for the rest of us, Bournemouth are just brilliant fun. They have conceded three or more goals eight times this season (only Wolves, Burnley and West Ham with more). They have scored twice or more in 20 of their 35 league matches. Do you know which teams can beat that? None.

Emery is taking an enormous risk with Aston Villa

This may be the biggest calculated gamble of Unai Emery’s Aston Villa tenure. In rotating his team heavily and seeing that side play slowly, defend poorly and generally look half bothered, Emery is banking on a) Villa taking four or more points from their final three league games and b) this sorry defeat not impacting upon Thursday night.

It’s the second point that is the most interesting because Villa Park got pretty toxic on Sunday evening as the home side had just three shots for a combined xG of 0.03 before second-half stoppage time began. Emery has repeatedly stressed that the fans have a role to play, but they pay a lot of money to watch sacrifice football. There was no obvious urge to change the pattern of the game.

Win on Thursday and that will be forgiven quickly, of course. But if Villa start slowly, the nerves and groans will be displayed far earlier than if they had approached the Tottenham game with a little less stink of the match not mattering a jot.

Why Liverpool can’t trust Slot

There have been caveats to the criticism all season; the latest is to arrive at the biggest away game of the season with no Mohamed Salah, no Hugo Ekitike, no Alexander Isak and thus no striker. Arne Slot came up with a system that he believed could trouble United and, on that point, was proven correct.

But there’s something about the personality of this team that isn’t right. They are too accommodating to the strengths of every elite opponent. They have spells where it looks like every defender has been banned from talking to one another. They create moves that seem to fizzle out because nobody really knows what comes next.

A fabulous solo goal from Dominik Szoboszlai and Liverpool are in the contest! pic.twitter.com/qy0XNLki2g

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 3, 2026

If this is only because of the injuries and the need to rebuild the team shape and the defence; fine. If this is because Slot is having more impact upon what this team looks like, I wouldn’t trust him to have another £200m spent on it.

Carrick brings the chaos at Man Utd

Manchester United are brilliant to watch under Michael Carrick. They try to stretch the pitch, try to get Bruno Fernandes between the lines to play smart curled passes and try to build up a head of steam. They’re also never totally safe in a match because there exists a gap between defence and midfield and thus the opportunity for opponents to overwhelm them if they win the ball high.

Which reminds me of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s United when he was temporary manager. You listen to Kobbie Mainoo saying the players would die for Carrick and you’re persuaded that he has to get the job. And then you wonder whether his role was to make this club look attractive to a manager with a better CV, more experience and who struggled less in his previous job in the division below.

Kobbie Mainoo rattles it in at the Stretford End! pic.twitter.com/3HDRLnyC4D

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 3, 2026

The answer? I’ve no idea. And neither do you. And neither, probably, do United.

Man City

Play Everton on Monday night.

Arsenal are in the driving seat again

Here’s the inimitable Kat Lucas to explain:

“Mikel Arteta left it until the last month of the season for one of his biggest – and the rewards proved greater than the jeopardy. Martin Zubimendi had played over 4,000 minutes, more than any outfield player, before he was replaced against Fulham by Myles Lewis-Skelly, making his first start in midfield.

What a half for Arsenal!

Gyökeres grabs his second! pic.twitter.com/KDRxCMFzuN

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 2, 2026

“The Lewis-Skelly trick was double-sided. On the ball he was a roaring success. He proved a far greater protector than a half-exhausted Zubimendi, shrugging off Sasa Lukic and Harrison Reed. He completed 97 per cent of his passes – four of them into the final third. Off the ball, the need to overlap with Riccardo Calafiori sometimes meant being pulled out too far.”

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