That’s all from matchday live today. Let’s close out with Kieran Trippier’s fond farewell from Newcastle.
Updated
The teams from the Etihad.
Manchester City: Manchester City XI: Trafford, Nunes, Khusanov, Guéhi, O’Reilly, Rodri, Bernardo, Semenyo, Cherki, Doku, Haaland. Subs: Donnarumma, Reijnders, Ake, Marmoush, Kovacic, Nico, Ait-Nouri, Savinho, Foden
Liverpool: Mamardashvili; Gomez, Konate, Van Dijk, Kerkez; Gravenberch, Jones; Salah, Szoboszlai, Wirtz; Ekitike. Subs: Woodman, Mac Allister, Chiesa, Gakpo, Robertson, Frimpong, Nyoni, Ngumoha, Morrison.
Rob Smyth is on deck to provide MBM coverage:
Confirmed: Trippier to leave Newcastle this summer
More on Trippier leaving Newcastle, a club statement.
After four and a half years of incredible service to Newcastle United, we can confirm that Kieran Trippier will leave the club this summer when his contract expires. Kieran arrived in January 2022 with the club in the relegation zone and played a crucial role as he went on to lift the club’s first domestic trophy in 70 years.
Trippier himself:
“The time has come to leave this amazing club after four-and-a-half years. This is where I have felt most at home. It’s emotional, and I’m really going to miss it.
“I want to say a massive thank you to the supporters for all the support through the good and the bad times. You’ve always supported me, always stood by me.
“To my teammates, it’s going to be emotional. It’s been an amazing journey with you guys. I’m going to miss you all, but to win a trophy with you guys was really, really special - the best of my career.
“And to the manager, Eddie Howe, all the coaching staff and the team behind the scenes, a massive thank you. The gaffer had the trust - twice - to sign me, gave me the opportunity to represent and captain this great club and most importantly, we managed to win a trophy.
“I’m going to miss everyone at the club. Thank you.”
Eddie Howe:
Kieran has been magnificent for us on and off the pitch. From the moment he walked through the door, he has helped to drive standards that have changed the club’s trajectory.
Here’s a below-the-line take on the Enzo affair.
News from Newcastle, via the Daily Mail’s Craig Hope: Kieran Trippier will not extend his contract and depart this summer. He joined the club as one of the key signings as one of the club’s Saudi reboot, helping keep them up at the end of the 2021-22 season. And then leading them into the Champions League. A player’s player, and managers, too. Gareth Southgate was a confirmed fan.
An addendum to the Gattuso departure on Friday. According to La Repubblica today:
“The scandal broke before Bosnia-Italy: the team asked the Italian Football Federation for €300,000 to go to the World Cup in the United States.”
Alex Neil: an underrated manager? He’s performing near-miracles at Millwall.
It’s a long time since 1987. Just ask the member of Curiosity Killed The Cat. Look at Leeds’ team against Coventry at Hillsborough in 1987, lost 3-2 to eventual victors Cov.
Coventry City: Ogrizovic; Borrows, Downs; McGrath, Kilcline, Peake; Bennett, Phillips, Regis, Houchen, Pickering (Gynn). Unused Substitute: Sedgeley.
Leeds United: Day; Aspin, Adams; Stiles (Haddock), Ashurst, Ormsby; Ritchie, Sheridan, Pearson (Edwards), Baird, Rennie.
Referee: R.G. Milford (Bristol).
Leeds could be back in the semis for the first time since then, should they win at West Ham. Both teams have other concerns on their mind.
It’s been a week where the final 48 at the World Cup were decided – Iran pending? – and a week where the cost of the event is being totted up. Not a pretty overall picture.
Billy Munday caught the return of Roy Hodgson to Bristol City after 44 years of absence.
Football has changed in the two years since Hodgson left Crystal Palace, including “the cult of the long throw”, with Charlton’s Harry Clarke launching a ball into the box within moments of kick-off here. “I only came across that in the 80s when we played Wimbledon,” he said.
Per Reuters, it’s a big day in Miami for MLS club Inter Miami.
Inter Miami will open the home Lionel Messi helped build when they host Austin FC on Saturday night.
The match will be the first at the Herons’ permanent home, the 26,700-seat Nu Stadium, constructed slightly northwest of downtown Miami.
While approval for construction came before Messi joined Miami (3-1-1, 10 points) and MLS in the summer of 2023, it was always billed as a project meant to attract the game’s biggest stars. And now the man considered the game’s greatest living player will lead his team there.
“Honestly, it’s spectacular getting to see the new home,” Messi said this week in Spanish. “The new stadium turned out incredible, and it’s really special to be able to experience it. We’d been eager to play there, to make our debut, to finally be competing there. And now the moment has arrived.“
We didn’t see Harry Kane this week for England, but Barney Ronay has been keeping an eye on the great man.
The Premier League does feel a distance away, doesn’t it? Perhaps the FA Cup and European action in midweek can salve our thirst for now.
The Women’s FA Cup is being played, too. Suzanne Wrack runs the rule over the ties.
Arsenal v Brighton, Sunday 1pm
Charlton v Liverpool, Sunday 2.30pm
Chelsea v Tottenham, Monday 1.30pm
Birmingham v Manchester City, Monday 5pm
Updated
Arsenal will come up against a goalkeeper on loan from Bayern Munich when they play Southampton in the cup later today. Ben Fisher spoke to Daniel Peretz.
Peretz was inspired by the Germany goalkeeper as a boy – he had a giant photo of the 2014 World Cup-winner on his bedroom wall – but in Bavaria Neuer, who turned 40 last week, morphed into a mentor. “[It went] from admiring the players, to them becoming my friends and my teammates.
“I watched every single save [Neuer] made and then he was with me day by day and he became a friend,” Peretz says, recalling the emotions of their first encounter. “I was sweating all over, so nervous that I could not speak. I had goosebumps, everything.”
More Liverpool, more Slot. More Salah.
Slot, however, insisted he would not have handled the situation with the club legend any differently. He explained: “Yes [he is happy with how he managed it]. I look back at this season thinking that I made a few decisions that could have been better, but I’m not talking about this specific thing with Mo. I don’t regret many things I did during our one-and-a-half years together, or just longer.
Ed Aarons takes up genealogy in this deep dive on the Arsenal family.
George Male was a key figure in Arsenal’s dominant side of the 1930s, helping them win five league titles in eight seasons. Known for his consistency and leadership in defence, he remains one of the club’s historic figures and is pictured in two places outside the Emirates Stadium. Male went on to become a long-serving youth-team coach and then a scout at Arsenal after retiring, and is remembered as the man who discovered Charlie George, who was part of the famous Double-winning team of 1970-71.
That Easter double-header got off to a great start for Frank Lampard’s Coventry. And: Millwall in the Premier League? It may well be happening.
Mikel Arteta wasn’t holding back in his press conference, either. This on the Carabao Cup.
During the first part, it’s like a ball of poison that you have in your tummy,” said Arteta when asked whether he had spent the international break stewing over the final.
“Take that out as quick as possible. How can I use that to make myself better, to make the team better? There is a part that I think has to be there and I think this is not going to go in the next 30 years. Because when you have the opportunity to win a final in Wembley, you have to get it done. So that has to stay there.
Talking of players linked with Madrid and City v Liverpool, Rodrí and Guardiola from Friday.
As mentioned in the preamble, today’s is a huge game for Liverpool. Andy Hunter has run the rule over the Arne Slot regime.
Let’s start with that Chelsea story. Ben Bloom was at the Liam Rosenior press conference while Jacob Steinberg has analysed the latest Cobham crisis.
Preamble
Good morning, football. Happy Easter, you happy eaters.
We’re up for the FA Cup, and it’s the last eight, with a huge game between Manchester City and Liverpool starting the weekend’s quartet of matches. Perhaps that’s not as amped up as it might have been, with both teams having tough seasons by contrast to previous successes but: City won the Carabao Cup in style and Liverpool look to rescue something from their season.
So, the games today are:
Manchester City v Liverpool, 12.45pm
Chelsea v Port Vale, 5.15pm
Southampton v Arsenal, 8pm
With the EFL being played on Good Friday and Easter Monday, there’s a lack of action in England’s 92. But: there’s action in Scotland and across Europe, and a series of stories to look at, including L’affaire Fernandez at Chelsea.
Join me.
