Vesper

1 1 Désiré Doué ANOTHER winger I begged to buy, lolol

another player I was begging us to buy sigh

nil 1 Villa Rogers

Barca up 1 nil Raphinha (25')

https://www.vipleague.pm/champions-league/barcelona-vs-borussia-dortmund-1-live-streaming https://www.vipleague.pm/champions-league/barcelona-vs-borussia-dortmund-2-live-streaming https://redditsoccerstreams.org/event/fc-barcelona-borussia-dortmund/1510109 https://soccer-100.com/event/uefa-champions/dortmund-vs-barcelona-live-soccer-stats/733610

https://www.vipleague.pm/champions-league/paris-saint-germain-vs-aston-villa-1-live-streaming https://www.vipleague.pm/champions-league/paris-saint-germain-vs-aston-villa-2-live-streaming https://redditsoccerstreams.org/event/paris-saint-germain-aston-villa/1510107 https://soccer-100.com/event/uefa-champions/aston-villa-vs-psg-live-soccer-stats/733609

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/jadon-sancho-Chelsea-man-utd-35017630 Chelsea are ready to pay Manchester United to get out of their obligation to sign Jadon Sancho, it has been claimed. The on-loan star made a fast start to life at Stamford Bridge, but his output in recent months had put a permanent deal in jeopardy. Under the terms of their loan deal for the winger, a Premier League finish of 14th or higher would require the Blues to fork out up to £25million to sign Sancho permanently. However, the agreement included a clause whereby they could pay United a seven-figure sum to back out. Sancho has three goals and five assists for Chelsea this season, but none of either since January 4. He also set up two goals in a Conference League win against Heidenheim in November, but wasn't able to contribute a goal or assist in the 83 minutes he played across two knockout legs against FC Copenhagen.

Chelsea winning the Conference League would give them a financial and footballing safety net https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6263960/2025/04/09/Chelsea-conference-league-importance/ The final stretch of Chelsea’s season is here and, in contrast to their extremely challenging Premier League run-in, the road to Wroclaw for the Conference League final on May 28 continues to look highly favourable. Chelsea’s massive financial advantage over the rest of the Conference League field has been well documented, and it is readily translatable to the strength of quality on the pitch. Quarter-final opponents Legia Warsaw lie fifth in the Polish Ekstraklasa this season and sit 71st in UEFA’s club coefficient rankings. Overcoming them would set up a semi-final date with either Rapid Vienna (fifth in the Austrian league and 69th in UEFA’s club rankings) or Djurgarden of Sweden (68th). Fiorentina are the only other club in the competition ranked as one of UEFA’s top 40 clubs (36th), and Chelsea (ninth) cannot meet them until the final. Winning this competition would therefore occupy a strange place in the Chelsea psyche. Becoming the first club (again) to complete the set of major domestic and European trophies has real meaning to many supporters. Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly are eager to lift their first silverware since purchasing the club from Roman Abramovich three years ago, and it would also be an important milestone for head coach Enzo Maresca and his young squad. Maresca could win the Conference League in his first season (Warren Little/Getty Images) All that said, it is difficult to imagine much appetite inside or outside Chelsea for an open-top bus parade from Stamford Bridge to Eel Brook Common if Maresca’s team go all the way, and anything less would be widely regarded as a significant embarrassment as well as a failure. Regardless of how it ends, Chelsea’s maiden run in UEFA’s third-tier competition will not move the needle financially, relative to their all-important pursuit of Champions League qualification, which will be decided no later than three days before the Conference League final when Maresca’s team wrap up their 2024-25 Premier League campaign away at Nottingham Forest. Champions League football was worth around £80million ($102m) to Chelsea in 2021-22 and 2022-23; the financial rewards of the Conference League are paltry in comparison. “If we take a look at West Ham, when they won it in 2022-23, they got €22million (£18.8million) in prize money,” football finance expert Kieran Maguire tells The Athletic. “Plus they had the benefit of seven home games. They wouldn’t have been able to charge full price because of the quality of the opposition, but they probably grossed €30m (£25.7m). “Then you factor in spending to improve the quality of the squad (to cope with more games). You’ve also got transportation costs, accommodation costs. You could also argue that it cost them as far as their league position was concerned (West Ham finished 14th in 2022-23), and that’s worth £3m per place. “Then the players would have had bonuses for winning the competition. So by the time you factor in all your costs, you’re talking, in my view, low single millions of profit (at best).” Chelsea are not quite in the same position. Their relentlessly high transfer spend always accounts for regular European football to a degree that other Premier League clubs do not. Their squad has not been stressed by this Conference League run — Maresca was able to employ wholesale rotation for the league phase — and, at least to date, their domestic league position has not suffered as a result of progressing to the knockout rounds. But the most tangible benefit to Chelsea of winning the Conference League would be the automatic passage it carries into next season’s Europa League. That will not matter if Maresca delivers the top-five finish in the Premier League that is almost certain to be enough to bring Champions League football back to Stamford Bridge in 2025-26, but it will be a valuable insurance policy if they end up missing out. Opta currently projects Chelsea as having a 43.4 per cent chance of finishing this season somewhere in the Premier League’s top five, but their likeliest final league position is sixth (27.2 per cent chance). If they were to slip even further to seventh (19 per cent chance), it opens up the nightmare potential scenario of Aston Villa or Crystal Palace winning the FA Cup and bumping them back into the Conference League, as Manchester United did to them last season. Europa League participation in 2025-26 would not be a thrilling prospect either, but it would be a clear and important step up for Chelsea in financial terms. Chelsea want to qualify for the Champions League (Clive Rose/Getty Images) “Manchester United grossed €32m (£27.4m) in 2022-23 and they were knocked out in the quarter-finals, so by the time you factor in the additional matches, the additional prize money, for winning it, you’re likely to be somewhere in the region of €45m (£38.6m) to €50m (£42.8m) as a big Premier League club,” Maguire adds. “Plus you’ve got your home matches, so if you add six of those in, you’re probably looking in the region of €60m (£51.4m). You’ve got additional operating costs, but the net benefit from a good year in the Europa League for a club with the status of Chelsea is around €25m (£21.4m) to €30m (£25.7m).” The significance of that increase in revenue is underlined by the last two years of Chelsea’s published accounts, in which the controversial internal sales of the two hotels outside Stamford Bridge and Chelsea Women were required to offset huge operating losses and keep the club on the right side of the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules. A punishment for failing to stay within UEFA’s financial limits — which do not allow such transactions to be factored into compliance calculations — is currently being discussed. That is more likely to be a fine than a sporting penalty, allowing Chelsea to embark on a new European adventure next season. Ownership and supporters would very much like it to be back in the Champions League, but lifting the Conference League in May would at least guarantee Europa League football and prevent them from being a giant among relative minnows again.

Carney Chukwuemeka feels key to Borussia Dortmund’s future – but can they afford to keep him? https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6263808/2025/04/09/chukwuemeka-dortmund-Chelsea-barcelona/ It is a sign of how strange Borussia Dortmund’s season has been that as they travel to Barcelona, and despite barely having played to date, Carney Chukwuemeka suddenly seems so important. Chukwuemeka arrived on loan from Chelsea in the winter transfer window but, owing to illness and injury, the 21-year-old midfielder has only been fit enough to play 135 Bundesliga minutes in the period since. He started his first game for the club on Saturday, playing 70 minutes of the 4-1 away win over Freiburg, and had a profound impact. In possession, he was cutting and purposeful with his passes, and typically bold with the ball at his feet. But he was rugged in the tackle, too, and physically commanding. Chukwuemeka created a flurry of first-half chances, scored with a deflected shot from the edge of the box in the second, then set Julian Brandt free to create Dortmund’s third goal for Serhou Guirassy. It was deeply impressive. At the end of the weekend, Chukwuemeka earned his first nomination to Kicker’s coveted Elf des Tages, their team of the weekend. Given that he has had so little chance to develop chemistry with his team-mates and that eighth-placed Dortmund are hardly enjoying a vintage season, that is quite the accolade. And this is a strange situation. Chukwuemeka scores his first goal for Dortmund against Freiburg (Alex Grimm/Getty Images) Chukwuemeka has been a virtual bystander since he arrived. But he has also played in short, rich doses that have shown his talent and pointed to a future direction for Dortmund. It helps that he so clearly fits the house style — that he is such a Dortmund player. The Westfalenstadion crowd wants to be moved by the football it sees on the pitch below and Chukwuemeka, as a blend of slashing technique, craft and ambition on the ball, suits that mood, conforming to all the local ideals while also helping the side to be much progressive — not to get stuck in second or third gear, but to play football at a pace that makes the terraces quiver. Tactically, as Saturday showed, many Dortmund players can profit from having Chukwuemeka in their midfield. Karim Adeyemi and Maximilian Beier both had first-half chances arising directly from the loanee’s ability to find gaps in Freiburg’s defensive and midfield lines. Brandt, who has suffered through an extremely difficult season, often appearing bereft of confidence, gave one of his best performances in recent months. Brandt showed improvement a week ago, in the 3-1 win over Mainz, but he seemed liberated by having Chukwuemeka alongside him and not compelled, as is so often his way and his weakness, to overplay. There is some overlap between their respective abilities and so taking some of the creative responsibility away from Brandt, particularly in deeper positions, splits the defensive attention he faces and focuses him more precisely. It was notable how often he received passes in space at Europa-Park Stadion and how he was regularly running towards Freiburg’s back four. Chukwuemeka has brought the best out of his Dortmund team-mates (Alex Grimm/Getty Images) Recently, Niko Kovac has moved away from the 4-2-3-1 he initially used upon taking charge, employing a 3-5-2 instead. Felix Nmecha has now recovered from the knee injury he suffered in January and is set to return to the No 6 role he was playing with such distinction in the late autumn. A central three of Nmecha, Chukwuemeka and Brandt certainly seems balanced and capable of extracting the best from each of those players. But perhaps nothing seems as valuable as Chukwuemeka’s personality. Prior to Freiburg, one of the characteristics of his impact across those cameo performances — particularly in the 20 minutes against Union Berlin and, a few weeks later, RB Leipzig — was his capacity to come on, demand the ball and simply play. It often felt like a tonic. That may sound like a vague virtue, but Dortmund have received a lot of criticism this season — rightly — and that has bred neuroses throughout their team. Kovac is dealing with fearful, inhibited players, some of whom seem preoccupied with not making mistakes. Whether because of his age, his personality or simply because he has not been at the club long enough, Chukwuemeka has not been infected by that willingness to hide in plain sight. After the Freiburg game, he told reporters with a shrug that he “hadn’t really thought about his performance in the first half” and that he had just played by feel. Also speaking in Breisgau, Adeyemi described his new team-mate as a “chilled out guy, a street footballer”, with Pascal Gross also praising Chukwuemeka as “a superb footballer” who “plays with great confidence”. Sebastian Kehl, Dortmund’s sporting director, admitted that while “Carney is still not at 100 per cent, he is always capable of making a difference”. Chukwuemeka tussles with Union Berlin’s Tim Skarke in February (Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images) Within this context, it’s easy to see Chukwuemeka less as a midfielder and more a heavy dose of vitamin B. Someone capable of jolting Dortmund to life with changes of rhythm, but also being more generally restorative and beneficial to the squad’s mood. Having a player to whom the game comes so easily rarely hurts. Especially not at Dortmund, where it has often looked so, so hard this season. Still: 135 minutes. These are big conclusions to draw from so little playing time. Furthermore, unless Dortmund requalify for the Champions League next season, it is difficult to imagine how they might afford the fee of around €50million (£42.9m; $54.7m) that would make Chukwuemeka’s loan permanent. At the moment, he is due to return to Chelsea even before the FIFA Club World Cup starts in June. Rather like the situation with Jadon Sancho and Ian Maatsen last season, who were so good on loan in the second half of the season but ultimately out of financial reach, it’s perfectly possible that Borussia Dortmund and Chukwuemeka will both be starting again in the summer. They work together and they seem to need each other. Whether they can stay together is another matter entirely.

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Christopher Nkunku’s Chelsea ‘struggles’ not due to lack of effort – Enzo Maresca https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6259050/2025/04/06/christopher-nkunku-Chelsea/ Enzo Maresca has insisted that Christopher Nkunku’s struggles at Chelsea are not due to a lack of effort. Maresca selected Nkunku to play as a No 9 in Sunday’s goalless draw at Brentford, but the Frenchman failed to impact the game before being substituted for Nicolas Jackson at half-time. Nkunku is widely expect to depart Chelsea at the end of the season in search of more regular game time, but the club’s head coach does not believe his struggles are down to a lack of effort. “I don’t think it’s a lack of effort because at the end I can see Christo every day and he’s working well,” Maresca said after the match. “Sometimes probably he wants to give more during a game and he struggles a little bit, but for sure I don’t think it’s a lack of effort.” Maresca also said it was unfair Premier League required Chelsea to play Tottenham Hotspur on Thursday and Brentford three days later due to a lack of recovery time. Chelsea lined up against Brentford with Cole Palmer, Jackson, Marc Cucurella and Levi Colwill all on bench after all four played big minutes in a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Spurs at Stamford Bridge on Thursday, 24 hours after Brentford lost 2-1 against Newcastle United. What You Should Read Next Brentford 0 Chelsea 0 – Maresca’s bold starting XI, Nkunku’s struggle, is Sanchez fun? Enzo Maresca made a bold team selection against Brentford and it failed to pay off. The Athletic's Liam Twomey analyses the action Asked if he felt the scheduling was unfair, Maresca replied: “I think so, especially at this stage of the season, but we tried to adapt. “We said many times that when it’s a transition game, it’s demanding, physically demanding. So Tottenham was more transition than compared to (this game), for instance. But at this stage I think 24 hours make the difference (in terms of recovery). “The reason why first half we started in one way and the second half we finished in the other way is because of that. And probably if we decided to start the first half in the way we finish, probably after half an hour, 45 minutes, the team was not physically good enough to finish the game. So we tried to find a solution.”

Chelsea’s top Premier League scorer in 2025 is left-back Marc Cucurella. That is a problem https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6259252/2025/04/07/chelseas-top-scorer-in-the-premier-league-in-2025-is-left-back-marc-cucurella/ How long will the inquest into Chelsea’s latest Premier League slip-up against Brentford run before someone asks the big question: why did Enzo Maresca wait until the 77th minute to bring on his top Premier League goalscorer of 2025? No, not Cole Palmer, introduced for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall just shy of the hour mark. Not Pedro Neto, brought on for Noni Madueke at the same time. Definitely not Nicolas Jackson, who made only his second Premier League appearance after a two-month injury layoff when he replaced Christopher Nkunku at half-time. The correct answer is, of course, Marc Cucurella. The roving left-back represented Maresca’s last attacking roll of the dice in the 0-0 draw when he came on for Reece James with 13 minutes left. Given that Chelsea have played 12 Premier League games in 2025, the Spaniard’s three goals since the turn of the year should be nowhere near enough to distinguish him as the most consistent attacking match-winner in the squad over that span, yet they are. Palmer has found the net only twice in 2025, the latest on January 14. His struggles have understandably garnered the most headlines but Chelsea’s attacking problems are far bigger. Madueke also has two Premier League goals to his name since the beginning of January, but none since tapping into an empty net in the third minute against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on January 25 (largely because of a significant injury absence). Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez are the only two other players in Maresca’s squad who have scored more than once since the turn of the year. Jackson’s failure to pass that threshold makes sense in light of his injury absence, though his scoring drought already stood at eight Premier League matches before his hamstring gave way in early February. Jackson failed to score against Brentford (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images) The inability of Jadon Sancho (goalless since December 😎 and Christopher Nkunku (one league goal in 2025) to clear such a low bar is harder to justify, but easy to explain when observing them on the pitch. Sancho, in fairness, has at least responded to the repeated urging of his team-mates and Maresca by trying to shoot more often in recent weeks. The problem is that on the relatively rare occasions when he manages to overcome his lack of explosive speed or overwhelming strength to create an advantage against his defender with skill, his attempts at goal lack conviction. At the Gtech Stadium, his only effort in the second half trickled well wide of Mark Flekken’s post. What more is there to say about Nkunku? Maresca’s post-match insistence that the Frenchman’s struggles are not down to a lack of effort felt as feeble and unconvincing as the sum of his contribution over 45 listless first-half minutes. Everyone knows that Nkunku is not a natural No 9, but his apparent limitations in recent months go well beyond that. Can he press? Can he make runs? Can he protect the ball from any level of physical pressure? Can he combine with others? Against Brentford, as for much of this season, the answer to all of the above was no, and the Frenchman’s limitations — whether due to a lack of effort or ability — caused visible frustration among his team-mates. Nkunku has always been an unusual footballer: not a true striker, winger or No 10, but a hybrid connector who does his best work somewhere in between. What You Should Read Next Chelsea’s accounts explained: Women’s team sold for £200m, profit posted, UEFA spending limit breached Chelsea's accounts make for very interesting reading - The Athletic breaks down the numbers and what it could mean going forward Last season’s pre-season injury that deprived him of the opportunity to become the hub of Mauricio Pochettino’s team will always be a sliding-doors moment, but it could not be clearer that his best position is away from Chelsea — and that in the meantime, Maresca cannot count on him to be a helpful force. That would be a significant problem for Chelsea even if their other attackers were producing in line with expectations, but as things stand Nkunku’s frequent disappearing acts form only part of a broader crisis of production across Maresca’s front line. Goals from Fernandez or Cucurella arriving late in the opposition box cannot save them forever, and did not against Brentford. Maresca’s response after the Brentford draw was to point out the fact that Chelsea are behind only Liverpool in expected goals (xG) this season. Their average xG of 1.7 in their 12 league matches in 2025 is only a marginal dip on their average of 1.9 xG per game this season, and against Brentford they had the most shot attempts (21) without scoring in a Premier League away game since December 2017 against Everton at Goodison Park. There is plenty of reason to believe that Chelsea’s numbers will rebound in a healthier direction now that Jackson and Madueke are fit enough to play around Palmer, and to make sure that Nkunku plays less. Maresca and Palmer after their draw with Brentford (Eddie Keogh/Getty Images) But they have only seven Premier League matches remaining, the final four of which are against Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest. That is a small and perilous enough sample size to fear a continuation of this collective attacking slump. If it continues, there will be plenty among the match-going Chelsea support who will lay the blame directly at the feet of Maresca and his insistence on patient, possession-focused football. Many of them could be heard chanting, “Attack, attack, attack” in the first half against Brentford and greeting a Madueke shot in the 34th minute with a sarcastic chorus of “We’ve had a shot”. Even more consequentially, Chelsea’s chronic lack of attacking punch in recent weeks belies the reality that their margin for error in the race for Champions League qualification is exhausted. Only time will tell if being held to a goalless draw by Brentford will be regarded as a disastrous point, but there is no world in which it is an encouraging one. Maresca will not care in the slightest who gets the goals in his team’s final seven Premier League games, as long as they arrive with frequency and volume. But if Cucurella is still Chelsea’s top league goalscorer of 2025 come the end of May, the club is highly unlikely to be returning to Europe’s elite club competition next season.

This is £88m in wages over 5 years .£124m in wages over 7 years hell no

even better troll in 140 seasons of football they have only 2 European trophies verus our 3 BEFORE Roman bought us and now we have 8, plus 1 global world championship

Myles Lewis-Skelly is going to be one of the best LBs on the planet soon and England finally will have a super LB again

that Arse away win in 2006 was the first time an English club ever beat Real at Real, in a competitive match

the only other time Arse has played in the Bernabeu in a competitive match, they won

Arse utterly shut down Mbappe and Vini Jr worst game combined I have seen them have

3 nil FT

Inter wins 1 2 only the 3rd goal they have conceded all of their CL so far