Rob Smyth's Blog

Newcastle 2-0 Nottingham Forest, Everton 2-1 Crystal Palace and more: Premier League clockwatch – as it happened

Jack Grealish’s injury-time goal ended Palace’s unbeaten run while Nottm Forest were beaten at St James’ Park

Newcastle v Nottm Forest

“Just quietly, mate, I don’t think Forest have been bad under Ange,” writes Chris Paraskevas. “The results are a little misleading: having watched a few of their games, they’ve either been genuinely unlucky, finished poorly or had every outfield player (including their goalkeeper), along with substitutes, all the backroom staff, the team bus driver, the mascot and the tea lady all pushed up for a (short) corner in the dying embers of a match.

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Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened

Estevao’s injury-time goal gave injury-hit Chelsea a memorable win over the champions, who lost their third game in a row

Arsenal beat West Ham 2-0 at the Emirates to move above Liverpool, at least for a couple of hours. This is how the Premier League table looks right here, right now.

And Enzo Maresca’s

It’s nice [to play Liverpool]. It’s a chance to learn and we’ve prepared as best we can.

[On Chelsea’s injuries] Nine players are unfortunately out, plus we have two or three players [who are carrying injuries*] We will try to find solutions and hopefully we can have a good day – for us and for the fans.

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England thrash South Africa by 10 wickets: Women’s Cricket World Cup – as it happened

Linsey Smith’s new-ball burst set the tone as England skittled South Africa for just 69 to win their World Cup opener in style

Linsey Smith strikes with her second ball at a World Cup! England decided to open with left-arm spin rather at one end and the move paid off straight away. The captain Laura Wolvaardt push-drove with hard hands and chipped a simple return catch back to Smith. What a start for England.

1st over: South Africa 9-0 (Wolvaardt 5, Brits 4) A solid start for South Africa, with a boundary apiece for the openers off Lauren Bell. I was going to describe those boundaries, but STOP PRESS.

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Football Daily | In the English football zodiac, 2025 is the Year of the Eagle

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At the risk of denouncing the family name, football has become a bit of an emotional vampire. At its worst, modern football is a cesspit of bile, hype, nonsense, hot air and yellow tickers. But every time we think enough’s enough and it’s time to change our name to Tiddlywinks Biennially, something happens to remind us why we wanted to be called Football Daily in the first place. Of late, the thing keeping us away from the deed poll office is a team dressed in a red and blue Macron kit. In the English football zodiac, 2025 is the Year of the Eagle. Crystal Palace won the FA Cup, the first major trophy in their history, followed that with the Community Shield and are now, after beating Liverpool thrillingly on Saturday, the only unbeaten team left in the Premier League. On Thursday they will make history when they play Dynamo Kyiv in their first match of Tin Pot’s league stage.

Taking ‘favourite shirt sponsors: go’ (last Tuesday’s Football Daily, full email edition) as an invitation, may I offer Wang Computers who sponsored my team, Oxford United, from 1985-89? For puerility fans like myself, the sponsor of course adorned our players’ shirts for the glorious Milk Cup final of 1986 where, inspired by the defeated QPR’s sponsor, a large banner in the Wembley crowd read something like: ‘I’d rather have a Wang than a Guinness any day.’ Whether any funds reached the club via this arrangement is debatable, but it certainly enabled our then-owner to [Snip – Football Daily Lawyers]” – Richard Prangle.

In response to Paul Clerkin wondering what the Football Weekly merch consists of (yesterday’s letters), that’s a cat that will surely stay firmly in its bag forever; if readers actually knew what they stood a chance of winning, they’d be sending in a daily deluge that would put Taylor Swift’s fan mail to shame. The internet would probably collapse and civilisation, including Football Daily, with it. Restraint, restraint. Please” – Simon Gill.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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

Arsenal moved up to second after late headers from Mikel Merino and Gabriel Magalhaes gave them a precious win

Mikel Arteta’s pre-match thoughts

[On Eberechi Eze’s inclusion] We’re very happy with what he’s doing so he’s earned the right to start the game.

[On Cristhian Mosquera’s inclusion] Willy [Saliba] is coming back from an ankle injury that he is still trying to resolve. He’s played twice in six days and we have another two games coming up this week so we have to managed the squad.

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Tottenham 1-1 Wolves: Premier League – as it happened

Wolves were seconds away from a deserved win when Joao Palhinha scored a brilliant equaliser for Spurs

13 min That Spurs lorner leads to another, which leads to a Wolves throw-in on the far side.

12 min The Spurs crowd appeal for a penalty when Udogie’s cross hits the arm of Doherty in the area. It was tight to his body to a corner is all Spurs will get.

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Real Betis 2-2 Nottingham Forest, Red Star Belgrade 1-1 Celtic: Europa League – as it happened

The impressive Igor Jesus scored twice for Forest, who were denied a winning return to Europe by Antony’s late goal

Wonder what Nuno is up to tonight. I don’t mean that flippantly. This is a landmark night for Forest, one that he engineered, and he won’t be involved in it.

Full time: Midtjylland 2-0 Sturm Graz

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Lincoln 1-2 Chelsea, Liverpool 2-1 Southampton, and more: Carabao Cup – as it happened

Alexander Isak opened his Liverpool account before Hugo Ekitike was sent off for celebrating his late winner

Wigan Tickle, Weir, Aimson, Fox, Cooper, Borges Rodrigues, Wright, Adeeko, Hungbo, Costelloe, Asamoah.

Subs: Savin, Luke Robinson, Rogers, Smith, Trevitt, Brenan, McManaman, Murray, Mullin.

Wycombe Norris, Huggins, Back, Hagelskjaer, Casey, Abbott, Boyd-Munce, Westergaard, Tilley, Fink, McNeilly.

Subs: Moore, Allen, Gregory, Skura, Leahy, Bartolo, Savage, Onyedinma, Lowry.

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Arsenal 1-1 Manchester City: Premier League – as it happened

Gabriel Martinelli’s injury-time goal cancelled out a beauty from Erling Haaland and denied City an old-fashioned away win

4 min Arsenal have started pretty well. Trossard makes a surging run down the left before being eased to the ground with a hint of disdain by Khusanov. No foul given.

1 min And they’re off. City have started with Phil Foden on the right and Bernardo Silva as the right-sided No8, a swap from the last two games. This is their revised line-up.

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England beat Ireland by four wickets first men’s T20 international – as it happened

The remarkable Phil Salt fell just short of another century as England chased 197 down with 14 balls remaining

1st over: Ireland 7-0 (Stirling 5, Adair 1) Luke Wood takes a couple of deliveries to get going. His first ball is a wide; his first legal delivery is larruped to the cover boundary by Stirling.

The rest of the over is better. An inswinging yorker is well defended by Stirling, who then inside edges past the stumps.

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