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UEFA Conference League 2025/26 Winner Odds Team Odds Crystal Palace 6 ACF Fiorentina 6.5 Racing Strasbourg 8 Shakhtar Donetsk 10 Rayo Vallecano 10 1. FSV Mainz 05 11 AZ Alkmaar 12 Dynamo Kyiv 21 AEK Athens 23 SK Rapid Vienna 26 AC Sparta Praha 26 Samsunspor 26 Legia Warszawa 31 Raków Częstochowa 36 Lech Poznań 36 Jagiellonia Białystok 41 CS Universitatea Craiova 51

Frenkie de Jong is soon permanently off the board. He is on the verge of signing a new Barca deal that ends when he will be 33yo or so.

Udo Onwere: ‘Being a lawyer is easier than being a footballer’ The former Fulham midfielder tells Catherine Baksi how his sports background has influenced his legal career — particularly his new venture with Jamie Redknapp https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/udo-onwere-interview-lawyer-footballer-m9cx7kz0g Udo Onwere — a former Fulham FC midfielder — trained as a lawyer after hanging up his football boots at the end of a 12-year career on the pitch. He is now a partner at Bray & Krais, a specialist music, sports and entertainment firm, where he leads the sports and private client teams — and the 53-year-old brings clients and skills from his time in the beautiful game. He recently teamed up with his fellow former footballer and long-time friend Jamie Redknapp to launch M&C Saatchi Football, a sports management company that provides career planning, mentoring and legal advice to young footballers. Aware of the impact of the competitive and pressured environment for young professional footballers, Onwere is keen to “give back” to the sport that he loves and ensure that they are properly equipped. Since its launch a fortnight ago, seven players have signed up for the company’s services. “Jamie does the mentoring and I’m tasked with dealing with all the legal side of things,” Onwere says. The duo try to involve players’ parents in an effort to “give them a dose of realism”. While the players are all talented, Onwere and Redknapp are keen to ensure they understand the stresses and pressures of success and failure. There are, he says, two things that the young players need to understand: “How to deal with disappointment and to realise that they will always have to prove themselves.” Comparing his two careers, Onwere says: “I always maintain that being a lawyer is easier than being a footballer.” He adds that he respects both professions “intensely, but I think there is an element of being a footballer that people might overlook. It is obviously quite glamorous and enjoyable, but there is a lot of performance pressure that comes with that.” In contrast to being a lawyer, where there can be “pockets of pressure and deadlines”, he says, “being a footballer is like going into an exam hall and having an examination every week. It’s brutally meritocratic.” Onwere had a stint at Lincoln City during his 12-year football career ALAMY Onwere, who retired from professional football 25 years ago, misses the fun aspects of his former career — teammates, locker-room camaraderie and “the adrenaline of the big wins; but it’s not something that I would run back to”. Born in Hammersmith, Onwere loved sport and football “from the moment I could walk”. Growing up in west London in the Seventies and Eighties, with his brother and two sisters, he recalls a “happy, loving childhood, with loads of fun”. But in 1988, when he left school after his GCSEs to take a youth training place with Chelsea, his parents, who had come to England from Nigeria during the Biafran war, “were not particularly pleased”. His father had been a market trader in Nigeria and his mother was a nurse. In common with many West African parents, he says, they prized education. It was three years after the Heysel Stadium disaster in Belgium, in which 39 people died after crowd trouble between rival fans led to a crush, and Onwere says that “football was in a different place than it is now”. There was, he recalls, a lot of hooliganism and racism associated with the game, adding: “It wasn’t an environment that was particularly welcoming to someone who was black.” Looking back, he can understand his parents’ reticence, but at the time says “I was just thinking they should be super proud and pleased”. The step up from schoolboy to club football was “intense”. At the same time as coping with the training, Onwere says “you’re growing up — your body is changing and your brain is changing”. After a two-year apprenticeship at Chelsea, Onwere signed his first professional contract with rival Fulham. Over 12 years he also played for Lincoln City, Dover Athletic, Blackpool, Barnet, Aylesbury United, Hayes and Maidenhead United, before retiring in 2000. “I wasn’t injured, I just made a conscious decision that I wanted to get into something else that was going to give me an element of stability and independence,” he says. Having enjoyed negotiating his own contracts during his footballing career, Onwere turned to law, completing an access course at Middlesex University before doing a degree. “I was reasonably academic at school and knew I would be able to deal with the amount of reading that was required,” Onwere says. The biggest change was getting used to modern methods of teaching. “When I left school in 1988, it was all blackboards and chalk” — but 12 years later, the world had moved on and Onwere had to learn how to type and use a computer. After law school, he joined Thomas Eggar (now Irwin Mitchell) as a trainee in 2006. Enjoying the “emotional intelligence” and “collaboration” required for non-contentious work, he qualified into the firm’s private client practice two years later. After a stint at Farrer & Co, he was head-hunted by Bray & Krais to launch its private client and sports teams. Building on his playing background, Onwere advises high-profile sportsmen and women, particularly professional footballers, managers and directors. His clients include the former player for England and Manchester United Rio Ferdinand and England and Chelsea siblings Reece and Lauren James. He also does regulatory and disciplinary work as a judicial panel member of the Football Association. Private client work includes handling the multimillion-pound estate of the One Direction singer Liam Payne. Cheryl Tweedy, a former partner of Payne, has been appointed administrator of the estate with the law firm founder, Richard Bray. Onwere lives in Dorking in Surrey, with his wife, who works in marketing. He enjoys swimming, watching football and spending time with his family. While “Fulham will always be in my heart”, he does not follow a club, but his three grown-up children all support Arsenal.

Still going on apparently. Foreign agent. Mind you look who he attracts. 🤐

it's from 24 January 2019: https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-are-us-pro-israel-groups-boosting-a-far-right-anti-muslim-uk-extremist/

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one of the best goals scored at the Bridge, this game was simply electric, and we should have won it at the end. Was anyone here at this game? Cheers

90th mintue Joao Pedro side I don't mind. 4th minute GK-red I am much more intolerant.

just hope we can finish this game with 11 players on the field for a change

Why are US ‘pro-Israel’ groups boosting a far-right, anti-Muslim UK extremist? Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the name “Tommy Robinson,” is one of the most prominent anti-Muslim activists in the world. A political adviser to a right-wing British party, he is the founder and former chair of a far-right Islamophobic group. Recently sentenced to 13 months in prison for illegally filming a court proceeding involving Muslims accused of sexual assault and publishing it on Facebook Live, Robinson is more than just an agent provocateur. He’s one of the main forces bringing extremist forms of hate and bigotry from the fringes to the mainstream. Why, then, are some of his biggest supporters — financial and otherwise — a loose coalition of reactionary, self-proclaimed pro-Israel backers? According to a recent investigation by The Guardian, Robinson is being bankrolled by a nexus of international organizations. Many of those groups, it turns out, are part of the American right-wing infrastructure and Israel Times of Israel His secretary blew the lid on this a while back when she revealed he is paid 8k a month by Israel

War in its self doesn’t take two army’s, by that standard your saying they can attack them but if they defend them selfs they are equally to blame, utter horse shit, and you can’t just I have Jewish friends as an excuse to not hate Jews, Tommy Robinson has Muslim friends and is still accused of hating all Muslim, that’s a typical response to some one calling some one a racist, “I ain’t a racist I have a black friend” also on the topic, calling one person blind from one side to some one who supports another side in its self makes you blind, your both blinded by your own emotions and thinking, which is fine but people are different and have different opinions, and that’s a good thing, to get upset and hostile with people over an opinion makes your no better than the people your arguing against. And the worst part is won’t even give that a second thought because your opinion on the matter is so strong it blinds your from a different way of thinking, Charlie Kirk although I didn’t agree with everything he said but I do on this, “your truth doesn’t matter” that goes for everyone and he was bang on the money.

I sincerely hope that we aren’t seeing a situation here whereas a manager has been told to try…View the full article

0% in 30+ age group I wonder what the squad breakdown percentage was when Mourinho won those titles or when Conte helped us win the league.

It was Nottingham, FC Sevilla, and a few Italian clubs.

We may get thrashed here. I am not optimistic atm. I feel like the idiotic board have ratfucked us by utter failure at GK and CB. Plus not a huge Maresca fangirl either, but he has also been dealt a partially shiy hand, especially with injuries.

We are already at peak bullshit: League Tottenham Hotspur eyeing Cole Palmer and Vinicius Junior in gutsy 2026 plans https://football-talk.co.uk/222562/tottenham-hotspur-eyeing-cole-palmer-and-vinicius-junior-in-gutsy-2026-plans/

He had 12 starts in 23 PL games last season, pretty similar. Probably to help manage his fitness. Bayern, United, Brighton were all starts, so makes sense to give a rest against Benfica.

And come Saturday the scousers will probably have the GK we should have been in for, Marmadashvili I'm sure he would have prefered to come here as 1st choice keeper instead of a bench warmer at scouseland.

Gusto has really regressed under Maresca, he looked good when he played under Poch. Good offensively and solid defensively - thought we got a good deal on our hands - but looks out of his depth in this new set up. It is strange.

What clubs are interested in him? Just asking out of curiosity?

He’s being expected to score now when playing with 10 men?

Remember when Morata scored on his debut, then soon after scored a hattrick (with right foot, left foot and header) against Stoke...? Yeah, it sucks to remember all of that. At least Joao Pedro seems to have a better mindset compared to Lukaku and Morata.

the team is playing like shit, atm we need to wait a little bit to judge him

That's 5 games for him without contribution. Nothing new for us to have a striker who is on fire at the beginning and disappears later. Morata, Lukaku...

UK Hits New Low Keir Starmer has been voted the least popular Prime Minister in UK history in a new IPSOS Poll. In this video, I’ll explain: Why Starmer’s ratings have collapsed so fast How he compares with previous Prime Ministers at their lowest point What this means for the Labour government and the future of UK politics