Vesper

2020-21 English Premier League Everton Manchester City http://www.sportnews.to/mysports/2021/premier-league-everton-vs-manchester-city-s4/#! https://www.totalsportek.com/page-4/

2020-21 UEFA Champions League, Round of 16 FC Porto Juventus http://www.sportnews.to/mysports/2021/champions-league-porto-vs-juventus-s1/#! https://www.totalsportek.com/stream-page-1/

2020-21 UEFA Champions League, Round of 16 Sevilla FC Borussia Dortmund http://www.sportnews.to/mysports/2021/champions-league-sevilla-vs-borussia-dortmund-s2/#! https://www.totalsportek.com/stream-page-2/

absolutely (to both)

Very disappointed with his regression.

Upamecano with another shitter last night. Bullet dodged. Been saying no no no for over a year (and getting stick). 🦾🧮

COVID-19 long hauler hope he is not perma damaged ☹️

he is so gone he has been superb for AC Milan FUCK!!!!

we shall just have to disagree on that I thought he was superb and I have always loved him

shame to see

Messi SO downing tools

and Kean

I would say zero chance Marina told Tuchel to play Kepa Roman would lose his shit unless HE actually told her to tell him to do it which I SO doubt Tuchel explained why he did anyway

1 1 Mbappe

so is Barca dive earning a manure style pen

2020-21 UEFA Champions League, Round of 16 RB Leipzig Liverpool http://www.sportnews.to/mysports/2021/champions-league-rb-leipzig-vs-liverpool-s2/#! https://www.totalsportek.com/highlights/arsenal-vs-everton-2016-match/

2020-21 UEFA Champions League, Round of 16 Barcelona Paris Saint-Germain http://www.sportnews.to/mysports/2021/champions-league-barcelona-vs-psg-s1/#! https://www.totalsportek.com/page-4/

The new order at Chelsea is working better for Kepa Arrizabalaga https://theathletic.com/2389448/2021/02/16/kepa-arrizabalaga-thomas-tuchel-Chelsea/ It was not until the 62nd minute against Newcastle United that Kepa Arrizabalaga gave off the air of a goalkeeper truly comfortable in his own skin. Jonjo Shelvey intercepted a rare loose Mateo Kovacic pass on the halfway line, looked up and identified the hint of an opportunity. He immediately hit a looping 50-yard shot that lacked the speed or the power to become a Charlie Adam, but still needed to be dealt with. It was exactly the sort of thing a midfielder like Shelvey would try to pull off. It was also exactly the sort of thing a goalkeeper with Kepa’s recent history may be inclined to take personally. Moving back towards his goal with purpose but no sense of panic, Kepa turned to face the dropping ball. Having briefly raised his arms towards it, he then withdrew them and puffed out his chest, using it to steer the ball down to his feet with minimum body movement and maximum disdain for the attempt. It looked and felt like a statement, a warning to Shelvey and to anyone else who might think of trying it again. “We need a strong Kepa in our squad,” Thomas Tuchel explained when asked by Sky Sports before kick-off why he had decided to give the Spain international his first Premier League start since the 3-3 draw with Southampton in October. “He had a good game in the cup (against Barnsley on Thursday), so we decided to give him another game to build up a little bit of rhythm, a little bit of confidence and to trust him. At the same time, we give Edu (Edouard Mendy) the chance to mentally recover. It’s a demanding position, mentally and concentration-wise, and with one decision we have both advantages.” It seemed a risky call as the teams made their way out onto the Stamford Bridge pitch. Entering the arena just behind captain and countryman Cesar Azpilicueta, Kepa was a bundle of nervous energy lining up in front of the East Stand, perhaps aware of the TV cameras lingering on him. Rubbing his gloved hands on the turf and swinging his arms about wildly before double high-fiving and hugging each of his team-mates, he then looked lost in his thoughts as he made the lonely walk to his penalty area. His first contribution, in the fourth minute, was a pass to the right flank that trickled out of play. Shortly afterwards followed an image more in keeping with the rest of the first half: Kepa doing lunges some 40 yards from his own goal to stay loose as Chelsea prepared to take a corner. Newcastle’s reluctance to attack, or even to commit to pressing their hosts high up the pitch, provided the ideal environment for him to settle. Soon he was barking advice and instructions to his team-mates, in between distributing the ball simply to those closest to him. Chelsea’s notably more intense press largely kept Newcastle pinned back inside their own half and whenever it did not, the visitors lacked the precision or imagination to generate a shot on target until they found themselves 2-0 down after 40 minutes. (All Kepa’s passes vs Newcastle: blue = successful, red = not) Shelvey led the Newcastle rally when it came after the break, involved in the build-up to a tame Isaac Hayden shot that finally forced Kepa into action, then curling a free-kick that Chelsea’s goalkeeper soared to his right to catch — a good moment for the cameras as well as for the confidence. Tuchel was less satisfied with Chelsea’s second-half display, though they were never made to feel more than mildly uncomfortable. Kepa’s most impressive save, a quick dash and dive to his left to parry Joe Willock’s header away from his far post, was good rather than sensational; in a functioning team no goalkeeper should need to be more than that, and this team has not conceded to an opposition player since the change of head coach three weeks ago. Even defensive set pieces, a source of constant anxiety last season, offered no cause for concern with assistant Anthony Barry shouting reminders of team strategy and individual marking assignments from the touchline. Only the second phase of Newcastle’s fifth and final corner was met with a less than convincing punch from Kepa, in the kind of situation where Mendy is often at his most commanding. Tuchel wasted no time in clearing up any broader uncertainty created by his decision to restore Kepa to the starting XI. “Edu is the No 1 and this is clear,” he said after the match. “This was clear before the game it stays like this. I’m very happy that Kepa continued with a second clean sheet in a row. It was the moment to let him feel the rhythm and build up his confidence, not only in the cup game but in a home game at Stamford Bridge. Edu will be in goal from now on because he recovered physically and mentally.” Goalkeeper is just one of the delicate situations Tuchel has inherited. Mendy has been a positive story this season and while flaws in his game have presented themselves in recent weeks, he has not done anything to merit being dropped. Kepa, meanwhile, may never live up to his gargantuan transfer fee, but his career record suggests he is also not as bad as he has looked for the last 18 months. There is no desire at Chelsea to give up on him, and Frank Lampard making clear that he had done so towards the end of last season was one of many things that worked against him in the January reckoning. So far, Tuchel has navigated a challenging squad landscape deftly, utilising the desire of those who felt overlooked by the previous management to his advantage while being careful not to be seen to exclude anyone himself. That balance will get harder to strike as he feels compelled to disappoint certain players in the weeks ahead, and his success in maintaining the improvement in results will partly depend on how many he can keep fully invested in what he is trying to build. Kepa’s broad smile at full-time, towel draped over his shoulders as he embraced Azpilicueta, suggested the new order of things at Chelsea is at least working better for him.

That point of the season where every Big Cup match really matters Neymar feels the pain. Photograph: Stéphane Mahé/Reuters Barry Glendenning @bglendenning Following 96 group games played ostensibly to get rid of Manchester United, Inter and Ajax, as well as the 13 other also-rans nobody gave a snowball’s chance in hell of qualifying for the knockout stages, hurrah for that point of the season where every Big Cup match really matters and watching is invariably a pleasure rather than an often dreary ordeal. Despite speculation that jeopardy might be increased by reducing knockout ties to potentially riotous one-legged white-knuckle rides for reasons pertaining to Covid, Uefa have decided to crack on with the usual format with a few minor but necessary and potentially controversial tweaks. The faintly ludicrous upshot? Travel restrictions in certain European countries mean Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City could all conceivably sneak into the last eight on away goals, despite playing opponents who are being forced to play their home legs against English opponents in neutral venues far away from their actual homes. Having made the 400-mile trip to Budapest to “host” Liverpool tonight, RB Leipzig can be reasonably confident of getting a result against a team whose domestic title defence has spectacularly hit the skids. Managed by the confident young German clothes horse Julian Nagelsmann, whose controversial trousers were the talk of last season’s Big Cup, Leipzig are hoping to emulate their semi-final appearance of a year ago. “He’s a big, big coaching talent,” said Nagelsmann’s compatriot and fellow gegenpressing enthusiast Jürgen Klopp. “We don’t know each other very well but I’ve followed his way because I like good football. He’s not the only one but he’s a good example of a lot of really good young managers in Germany.” Meanwhile in Barcelona, mischievous locals spent the night setting off fireworks outside the Paris Saint-Germain team hotel in a bid to prevent their side’s opponents from getting a good night’s kip ahead of their potential firecracker of an encounter. “It’s our clear objective to win [Big Cup] and we understand the responsibility and the excitement,” yawned Mauricio Pochettino, as a Big Bomb Sky Rocket screamed past his ear. If PSG are to avenge their famous 2017 Big Cup bottle-job in Barcelona, they will have to do so without Neymar, who looks certain to miss both legs against his former club with knack. “The sadness is huge, the pain is immense, and the weeping is constant,” wrote the tearful Brazilian in a melodramatic FaceSpace post. “For a while, I will once again have to stop doing the thing I most love in life, which is playing football. I dribble and I get hit constantly. It makes me very sad. It makes me very sad to have to listen to a player, a coach, a commentator or whoever the hell it is say ‘they have to kick him’, ‘he dives’, ‘cry-baby’ ‘spoilt kid’, etc. It saddens me and I don’t know how much longer I can take it. I just want to be happy playing football. NOTHING ELSE.” Here’s hoping his mood has improved by the end of the second leg, or his sister’s latest birthday, which falls the following day, could be quite the damp squib. LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE! Join Nick Ames for hot Big Cup coverage RB Leipzig 1-1 Liverpool and join Rob Smyth for the rollercoaster ride of Barcelona 3-3 PSG RECOMMENDED VOTING The Guardian, Football Weekly, The Fiver, David Conn, Jonathan Liew and Suzanne Wrack have all been nominated at the FSA Awards. Voting is open this week. Vote now! Vote Fiver! If these cute animals could vote, they’d vote for the Fiver. If the Fiver were nominated. Which it isn’t. And they can’t. Photograph: Tierfotoagentur/Alamy Stock Photo QUOTE OF THE DAY “I decided after this season [I want] to do something new, to leave the club . It was no easy decision because I have been here for 13 years and this club is close to my heart” – David Alaba puts Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool on red alert. Well, maybe just Real Madrid. FIVER LETTERS “Carlo doesn’t need to buy a big new safe [yesterday’s Fiver]. What he needs is a lifesize cardboard picture of his assistant Big D next to a sign saying: ‘I live here.’ Back in the day burglars broke into Big D’s house, apparently he heard a noise and went downstairs. The word was that it was the burglars who called the Feds” – Steve Roberts. “I am less than impressed that players from The Pope’s Newc O’Rangers might have been caught at a Glasgow house party after the Saturday match. In the 1960s my father – a detective in the Glasgow Polis – busted a tenement brothel in the Maryhill area and found one of the more famous players from said team drunk in the kitchen (and in his underpants) at three o’clock on the Saturday morning. He was playing 12 hours later and nothing in the match reports (my father checked!) suggested any deterioration in his performance – at Ibrox” – Roger Sigrist. Send your letters to [email protected]. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day prize is … Roger Sigrist. RECOMMENDED LOOKING David Squires dons his wetsuit and plunges into the cyber cesspool of social media. NEWS, BITS AND BOBS Arsenal will remind Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of his responsibilities after Insta footage revealed he had received some new ink from tattooist Alejandro Nicolas “Painless” Bernal. James McClean has been offered support by the Football Association of Ireland after he and his wife Erin revealed the extent of sectarian abuse he has been receiving on social media. It’s Atlético Madrid for Chelsea and Fiorentina for Manchester City in the last-16 draw of the Women’s Champions League. Mason Greenwood has signed a new four-year contract to stay at Manchester’s Big Red until 2025. “There is so much that I want to achieve in the game and I know that this is the perfect environment to play my football,” he chirruped. STILL WANT MORE? Marco van Basten, Falcão and Kev Nolan feature in the latest edition of the Joy of Six – half a dozen goals where the co-creator literally didn’t have a kick. Get your Big Cup last-16 previews and predictions for this week’s ties here. One of the five RB Leipzig players Nick Ames suggests Liverpool should beware in the Big Cup is Peter Gulásci, a goalkeeper brought to Anfield under Rafa Benítez, who sat on the bench under Mr Roy and Brendan, but never played a game for the club. Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO! GOODBYE CELESTIAL CLOUD. GOODBYE NEPTUNE SEAS.

I was only listing them if they were interested, obviously it will come down to the first 9 (AC Milan would be my 10th, as they do have billions backing them and have players to sell if need be, plus they are truly on the rise), with the first 5 the favourites

At the end of Laps, I saw zero clue how to sort the team. The ONLY bad thing atm about his leaving is that we are not going to (apparently) for Rice, who I so so rate. He is a fucking beast, easily a top 6 to 8 DMF on the planet. Joshua Kimmich Casemiro Rodri N'Golo Kanté Declan Rice Fabinho Sandro Tonali Eduardo Camavinga Denis Zakaria Ismaël Bennacer Tomas Soucek Boubacar Kamara Bruno Guimarães Thomas Partey (too injury-prone) Rúben Neves Manuel Locatelli Wilfred Ndidi Jorginho Marcelo Brozovic Weston McKennie (more of CMF, but can play DMF) Aurélien Tchouaméni Boubakary Soumaré Kalvin Phillips Leander Dendoncker Florentino

Well, he has only mentioned 3 names, and two (Alaba and Upamecano) are already off the board, leaving only the number one in-demand player on the planet (Håland). He can hardly go bonkers if we fail on Håland as we are going up against ALL (literally) the other top 12 teams for him. Manchester City Real Madrid Barcelona Paris Saint-Germain Bayern Munich Chelsea Juventus Manchester United Liverpool AC Milan Atlético Madrid Inter Milan and 5 much smaller teams who will still probably put a bid in (and fail spectacularly) Tottenham Hotspur Borussia Dortmund (almost no chance they can keep him, they are a selling club) RB Leipzig SSC Napoli Arsenal (Banter FC, most delusional fanbase on the planet, with possible exception of Pool)

Fuck those plastic fucks. Cunts would rather lose Little England style than win with sophisticated Euro tactics. I really like what I see of Tuchel so far. He is streets ahead of Lampard tactics-wise.