15+ hour, 52+ min ago   (691+ words) Sunday 13 September 2026 For Florian Wirtz, there may already be no escape. His fate might well already have been sealed, regardless of how his story and his career unspool from here. Only a little more than a year after he arrived…...

18+ hour, 47+ min ago   (477+ words) Saturday 12 September 2026 It was a good enough line that he repeated it not long afterwards. It was the right tone, too, acknowledging the setback while refusing to catastrophise it, but that he felt he had to say it at all…...

5+ day, 14+ hour ago   (1011+ words) Tuesday 8 September 2026 There are three possible explanations as to why there continues to be a draw for the group phase of the Champions League. None of them have very much – if anything at all – to do with working out which…...

1+ week, 17+ hour ago   (571+ words) Sunday 6 September 2026 As one crowd drifted out of the stands at the MKM Stadium, in search of a pie or a pint or perhaps a stranger to slap them in the face to make them feel alive after 45 turgid minutes…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (599+ words) Saturday 5 September 2026 It was supposed to be the start of a brand new era. For the first time ever, Chelsea will be playing all of their Women’s Super League home games at Stamford Bridge, bringing to an end a decade-long…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (850+ words) Saturday 5 September 2026 It was a moment that supercharged what was already a euphoric celebration. Manchester City were celebrating their Women’s Super League and FA Cup double, only a second ever league title in their history and a first in a…...

2+ week, 1+ day ago   (665+ words) Saturday 29 August 2026 Nothing, like something, happens anywhere. That was what the poet Philip Larkin concluded when he recalled his humdrum childhood in Coventry. But not even the most battered and bruised obsessive can say that being a fan of the…...

3+ week, 1+ day ago   (519+ words) Saturday 22 August 2026 By targeting the Moroccan ­midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi, Manchester City have shown themselves keen to acquire a player who, according to the BBC website, “functions as a ­deep-lying conductor”. That’s an ambition, and a metaphor, worth thinking about. Meanwhile,…...

3+ week, 1+ day ago   (342+ words) Saturday 22 August 2026 Arsenal won 1-0, but the match underlined the complications of using goal average. It had been even more confusing when Huddersfield Town pipped Cardiff City to the title in 1924 by a goal average advantage of just 0.02. In general, a…...

4+ week, 1+ day ago   (1036+ words) Summer sale – 50% off Saturday 15 August 2026 When Layla Drury, 17, smashed home England’s second goal against Portugal here on Thursday evening she was entitled to dream that she had clinched a place in the squad for next month’s Under-20 World Cup. Even…...