Scott Murray's Blog, page 50

Arsenal 2-1 Fulham: Premier League – as it happened

Gabriel’s error gifted Fulham the lead, but he eventually redeemed himself by scoring Arsenal’s late winner

3 min: Mitrovic spins down the right and swings a speculative ball into the middle for Kebano. White comes over to intercept, just as Kebano was thinking about skittering clear, though his first touch was a bit clumsy. On another day, that might have teed up Kebano to tear off with the ball.

2 min: Xhaka battles as Xhaka does, and wins the first corner of the match within 40 seconds. Martinelli and Jesus take it short, overplay, and Fulham clear their lines.

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Southampton 0-1 Manchester United: Premier League – as it happened

A brilliant team goal, finished off in style by Bruno Fernandes, gave Erik ten Hag’s newly resolute United all three points

2 min: Saints win a throw deep in United territory down the right. Salisu launches it long. McTominay half clears, then Aribo floats a cross that De Gea claims with ease.

Saints get the ball rolling and immediately pump it long down the inside-right channel. Events at Brentford a fortnight ago have been noted.

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Champions League draw: Liverpool land Rangers, Bayern get Barça – as it happened

Liverpool look to have the toughest draw of the English quartet, while Erling Haaland returns to Dortmund and Celtic face Madrid

Altintop and Toure take up their positions behind the pots. The draw is about to start! Uefa deputy general secretary Giorgio Marchetti and Uefa head of club competitions Tobias Hedtstück arrive to take charge of proceedings. No legally-binding guarantees, you know how these things are drawn out in more ways than one … but it looks like we’ll be off in a minute or two.

The Champions League trophy is brought onto the Istanbul stage by Hamit Altintop. The former Turkey international played in the 2010 final for Bayern Munich, who were defeated 2-0 by Internazionale. He’ll also assist with the draw, alongside Yaya Toure, who joins everyone onstage. Toure was part of the Barcelona team that beat Manchester United 2-0 in the 2009 final.

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The Fiver | Arbitrary fiasco ratings and the glorified tombola of European football

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The goal of the season so far was unquestionably scored by Milan Pavkov on Tuesday night. The substitute striker was sent on late by Red Star Belgrade – or Crvena Zvezda, if you like needlessly throwing up barriers to comprehension – in the hope of winning the Big Cup qualifier they were playing. And win it he did, if only for opponents מועדון הכדורגל מכבי חיפה – that’s Maccabi Haifa, duh – as under no pressure whatsoever, he sliced spectacularly into the top-left corner of his own net on the stroke of time. Oh Milan! The 2022-23 edition of Big Cup hardly knew ye!

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Manchester United 2-1 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened

United flew out of the blocks to secure their first win of the season and leapfrog their old enemy in the Premier League table

Erik ten Hag, who has made some big calls this evening in dropping both his star turn and club captain, has his say. “We know Liverpool are a really good team and you need to press them. You have to do that out of a block and need a lot of energy in transition, that is why we went with Rashford, Sancho, Elanga.” That’s Ronaldo coming off the bench to score a 90th-minute winner, then. Ten Hag also describes Casemiro as “the cement between the stones.”

Jurgen Klopp has named a very young bench, necessity being the mother of invention. A shot across FSG’s bows, in the wake of his admission that, in an ideal world, one in which he has control of the purse strings, another midfielder before the transfer window closes would be nice? Fabio Carvalho is 19, while Dutch defender Sepp van den Berg is 20. Both have a period in the Championship under their belt, with Fulham and Preston respectively. However, winger Bobby Clark and defensive midfielder Stefan Bajcetic are mere pups, straight out of the academy at 17, though both are highly regarded, and Bajcetic enjoyed a good pre-season with the first-team squad.

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The Fiver | Bayern and PSG hit seven to make the Premier League look competitive

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Red flags fluttered all over Europe this weekend, as the modern sport of association football bared its jacksie in brazen style. Ten-in-a-row Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich won 7-0 at Bochum. Paris Saint-Germain also scored seven away as they humped Lille, one of only two clubs to have stopped them winning Ligue Urrrrn in the past decade. Barcelona and Real Madrid also notched big wins on the road, a pair of 4-1 victories against Real Sociedad and Celta Vigo, respectively. The Queen’s Celtic established a two-point cushion over The Pope’s Newc O’Rangers after their fourth straight win, so that’s Scotland done and dusted, you see if we’re wrong. The €uropean $uper £eague clearly wasn’t the answer, but we surely can’t go on like this.

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Gibbs-White joins Forest, Ten Hag defends Glazers – as it happened

Look back over the day’s team news, transfer updates and other assorted football-related yammering

Liverpool: Jurgen Klopp took a swipe at Aston Villa striker turned Talksport contrarian Gabby Agbonlahor during his press conference this morning. Andy Hunter, our man on the Merseyside beat, has the latest.

Aston Villa: Steven Gerrard has been getting his yap on before heading to that there Big London, where his team are scheduled to play Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park tomorrow afternoon. Villa beat Everton last weelend but lost centre-back Diego Carlos to a long-term achilles injury.

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The Fiver | Casemiro, Manchester United and crisis-baton rubbernecking

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Got to be honest, the weekend Premier League fixtures aren’t the most fascinating. Leicester versus Southampton offers the vague promise of some crisis-baton rubbernecking, Brentford’s trip to Fulham has the potential to be the most polite local derby in Premier League history, and if New Arsenal are planning on revealing themselves as Old Spurs, then Bournemouth is the very place for all those box-fresh hopes of progress to crumble to dust. As for Newcastle United’s chances of taking anything from Manchester City, we point you in the direction of Eddie Howe’s record against the Citizens of 12 matches played, 12 losses, five goals scored, 39 against, and all without facing Erling Haaland. God speed the Foxes, Saints, Gunners and especially the Toon, but very little of it screams jaw-dropping, eye-popping, interesting-first-paragraph-inspiring action.

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The Fiver | Taking a trip to the west Midlands down the Jorge Mendes Highway

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Being held to a draw early in the season by a newly promoted side such as Fulham can be enough to send some people into a blind panic, the sort of wild flat spin and concomitant loss of perspective that eventually leads to Clockwork Orange-levels of base delinquency. But the folk at Wolverhampton Wanderers have signally calmer dispositions than the uber-rattled Darwin Núñez. Disappointing draw with the Cottagers? No need to fret, fuss and feud! Let’s simply respond by quietly and efficiently breaking the club transfer record for one of the most talked-about young midfielders in Europe! And there we have it, spirit restored at a stroke. All tranquil again, and no need to be putting the nut on anyone quite yet.

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The Fiver | Manchester United, Elon Musk and the bored squillionaires club

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Late last night, Elon Musk, the bored squillionaire with deeper pockets than a Gulf state and an ego to match, rolled up to Old Trafford in his electric jalopy and started performing donuts in the car park. Look at me, everyone, his actions seemed to be saying. Look at me, look at me, look at meeeeeeee. But nobody looked at him. They were all staring at the current Premier League table with glazed [Glazered? – Fiver Ed] looks on their faces. So poor Elon had to go home and get their attention some other way. He did this by announcing on Popular Social Media Disgrace Twitter: “I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome.” There, that snapped them out of it! Everybody looking now. Clever Elon, who did it all by himself from scratch.

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