WSL updates from four games, plus Ipswich v Norwich in Championship – clockwatch live | Soccer

Spurs women: Kop, Nildén, Hunt, Koga, Neville, Spence, Summanen, Holdt, England, Naz, Tandberg

Subs: Ahtinen, Graham, Grant, Gunning-Williams, Heeps, Oroz, Rybrink, Thomas, Vinberg

Brighton women: Nnadozie, Olislagers, McLauchlan, Hayes, Rule, Čanković, Symonds, Kafaji, Noordam, Seike, Agyemang

Subs: Baggaley, Camacho, Carabalí, Heron, Milner, Mpome, Poulter, Rayner, Tsunoda

London City Lionesses women: Lete, Corrales, Linari, Sangaré, Fernández, Parris, Geyoro, Kumagi, Asllani, Franssi, Goodwin

Subs: Brown, Godfrey, Hillyerd, Imuran, Kennedy, Lindström, Pérez, Roddar, Zelem

Liverpool women: Borggräfe, Fisk, Bonner, Clark, Shimizu, Nagano, Kapocs, Kerr, Höbinger, Holland, Enderby

Sub: Evans, Kirby, Lundgaard, MacLean, Olsson, Haug, Silcock, Szymczak

Leicester women: Leitzig, Thibaud, Kees, Swaby, Ale, McLoughlin, Tierney, Cayman, van Egmond, Rantala, Cain

Subs: Ayane, Clark, Eiríksdóttir, Las, Mouchon, O’Brien, Payne, Sherwood, Wellesley-Smith

Everton women: Ramsey, Kitagawa, Fernández, Stenevik, Holmgaard, Wheeler, Mace, Hayashi, Momiki, Robinson, Vignola

Subs: Startup, van Gool, Payne, Ladd, Weir, Pacheco, Jones

Thank you, Tom. I’ve got the team news from the 11:55am WSL games and the East Anglican derby coming right up.

Ok, that’s it from me. I’m going to hand over to Xaymaca Awoyungbo who will have the team news from the WSL games and the East Anglian derby for you shortly.

Henry messages keep Saka sharp as he makes 200th Premier League appearance

Bukayo Saka’s second-half penalty ensured the Gunners downed London rivals West Ham 2-0, it was also his 200th appearance in the Premier League, an occasion he marked with his 100th goal involvement in the competition.

Asked about those stats and Henry, Saka told broadcasters he got a message from Arsenal legend Thierry Henry ahead of the game: “Thierry always messages me. He messaged me this (Saturday) morning as well to remind me we lost the last two games to West Ham at home.

“He is always pushing me and I think he wants me there with him. It is nice to have that encouragement from him and of course me, I want it as well.

“I’m really happy on these records. I’m just going to keep pushing and try and get some team trophies, which is what we have been searching for.”

The penalty was Saka’s 55th goal in the Premier League to go with 45 assists.

“I don’t really like to linger on these things, but you said it – it’s a beautiful achievement and I’m really proud of it,” Saka said.

“Obviously 200 games for Arsenal in the Premier League is a really big moment. I’m going to enjoy it and it was nice to get the goal as well and the win.”

Quotes via PA Media.

More on Ange from Jeff Sax via email (keep those coming in):

After last season’s disaster at Spurs, it was obvious Ange wasn’t suited for the Premier League. His hiring to manage Nottingham Forest says everything about their owner.

Your words, jamesofwalsh…

The first game of the day is Udinese v Cagliari and here’s the team news…

Udinese XI: Sava, Goglichidze, Kabasele, Solet, Zanoli, Piotrowski, Karlstrom, Atta, Kamara, Zaniolo, Davis.
Subs: Bayo, Bertola, Buksa, Ehizibue, Ekkelenkamp, Gueye, Lovric, Miller, Modesto, Padelli, Palma, Venuti, Zarraga, Zemura.

Cagliari XI: Caprile, Palestra, Deiola, Prati, Felici, Mina, Borrelli, Zé Pedro, Obert, Folorunsho, Esposito.
Subs: Ciocci, Serno, Idrissi, Mazzitelli, Luperto, Adopo, Kilicsoy, Di Pardo, Cavuoti, Pavoletti, Luvumbo

While we’re discussing managers on the brink, Russell Martin is remarkably still in a job at Ibrox. His side head to Falkirk today, where anything other than win will spell the end, right? Right?

I love the phrase ‘shagged himself’ here. Some very lively debate over the Forest situation going on below the line, keep it coming, great stuff:

I think where Marinakis has royally shagged himself is in the message to prospective managers he’d now send if he were to bin Postecoglou.

Sacking a manager on the back of your best season in over quarter of a century would be a massive red flag, but had it at least been done in a summer window you might have tempted a new candidate with a decent budget which could have been appealing to (at a huge push) an iraolo or glasner, or perhaps more realistically marco silva.

But if a teams onto its third manager before Christmas who wants to walk into that shitshow?

We’d be looking at somebody walking through the door with half an eye on the pay off before they’ve taken charge for a single game.

A lot of money was spent in the Premier League this summer. Not all of it well, but some of the new arrivals are starting to shine. Benjamin Sesko has two in two, Mohammed Kudus also bagged and Estevao got the late winner for Chelsea against Liverpool. How are you feeling about your club’s new signings?

This piece from the Guardian Sports Network looks at the progress of a few of the league’s new arrivals:

My contacts in the Tractor Boys community are very confident, too confident?

All the pressure is on Ipswich today. We’ve had six Prime Ministers since the last time that lot won the derby . Never has the expectation of an Ipswich victory been higher. Norwich are currently crap but unbeaten away . The key will be the opening goal ,if the home side score first, I think it’s gonna be a 4 or 5 nil. I don’t think Manning will survive.

In La Liga, Real Madrid brushed aside Villarreal yesterday but Barcelona will go back to the summit if they can win at Sevilla. This not a vintage Sevilla team, although an ageing Alexis Sanchez will get a chance to play against his od club, which is nice.

I mentioned Genoa are at Napoli today, amongst their ranks is Brooke Norton-Cuffy, who played a part in England Under 21s defending their European crown thgis summer. He has been chatting Ed Aarons about life in Serie A:

You would have to say the best of the Euro action is coming from Serie A today. Roma, Napoli and AC Milan are all tied on 12 points, as are Inter but they have played a game more. Roma travel to Fiorentina after a Europa League defeat at home against Lille, Napoli beat Sporting in midweek and host Genoa at 5pm, then Juventus play Milan in Turin. Woof. Nicky Bandini’s Serie A column should be a cracker this week.

Do you know who won again yesterday? Only bloody Hearts. Jambos do you think this is sustainable? Celtic host Motherwell today and cut the gap to two points but Derek McInnes’s side cannot stop winning right now, even if they keep leaving it very late. Fascinating stuff happening north of the border and not all of it in Glasgow.

PeterPrincey hits on an interesting point here. My theory is because the Premier League is a league of managers, where players are secondary. All the narrative comes from the men in the dugout and therefore anytime their teams take a dip they are the fall guys. Liverpool play badly and it is Slot’s fault, City play well because Pep Guardiola is a genius and so on. While there is certainly some truth in that, they are also a vector through which we compute our understanding of the game. I’ve swalled a thesaurus this morning.

Reading the columns lately feels like watching someone playing Whac-A-Mole with managers — Amorim survives another week, Maresca’s justified for now, and now it’s Ange’s (permanent?) turn in the barrel. Meanwhile, Slot’s popping his head up for a look-see.

It’s getting exhausting, almost like watching ten soap operas crammed onto one stage.

Coming up at 11.55am (BST, yes it’s still technically summer time) we’ll be bringing you live updates from the full slate of Sunday fixtures in the WSL. My colleague Xaymaca Awoyungbo will be in the chair be then. Here’s a reminder of the fixture list:

Leicester v Everton
London City Lionesses v Liverpool
Tottenham Hotspur v Brighton
West Ham v Aston Villa

There were some pretty unhappy scenes in the EFL yesterday, namely at Hillsborough where play was stopped for five minutes due to the latest fan protest against Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri. It was a miserable afternoon for Owls fans as their side was shellacked 5-0 by visitors Coventry. Steve Bruce also had a bad day. Blackpool’s poor start to the season continued with a 2-0 home defeat against AFC Wimbledon and afterwards Bruce was dismissed from his position at Bloomfield Road. Blackpool fans, who do you want to see come in? Still plenty of time to turn the season around. Wednesday fans, I’m sorry, you have my deepest sympathies.

On the subject of doing the opposite, how are Ipswich fans feeling about today? Will the Old Farm hoodoo finally be broken? Get in touch via the link above or below the line the comment section.

This is a textbook case of the football fan reverse anxiety complex, it’s commonly associated with the great philosopher George Costanza, who said that if everything is telling me one thing, then I must do the opposite:

I’m a bit worried about playing Forest today. Can’t really put my finger on why. I don’t rate Ange as a manager, and even if he was half decent he was doomed from the start. Parallels with Pardew at Newcastle in being an underwhelming successor to a popular manager who was unfairly sacked – he’ll never have the fans on side. There has to be some discomfort in the dressing room at Forest too with what has gone on. And I think we (Newcastle) have the better squad. And we’re at home. I just have a bad feeling….these long win-less runs have to come to an end and in the past we’ve often been obliging. I hope to be proven wrong this afternoon.

Jonathan Wilson

Some fixtures just don’t sound right. Maybe it’s just about conceivable that, had things gone slightly differently in the 70s, Malcolm Allison or Terry Venables could have been leading their side behind the Iron Curtain for a crack at Valeriy Lobanovskyi’s cybernauts, but Dynamo Kyiv against Crystal Palace is still a clash that provokes a double-take. It feels like a category error: how can those two clubs possibly be in the same competition?

But this is the modern world. Ukraine is battling invasion, its teams diminished. The Premier League is extremely rich. And Crystal Palace are managed by one of the rising talents of the European game. They didn’t just play each other on Thursday, but Palace won with a degree of comfort. It was their third straight win, their 19th consecutive game without defeat.

And so, because no mid-size club can even just be allowed to enjoy a good run, all the talk is of where Oliver Glasner might go next. His contract expires at the end of the season and he has refused to sign an extension. He is 51; if he is going to take over a major club with the possibility of an extended spell in charge, he doesn’t have a huge amount of time to secure a move. Could he then be the solution for Manchester United? He does, after all, play the same 3-4-2-1 as Ruben Amorim, just rather more successfully.

Read Jonathan Wilson’s column in full here:

Have you got Erling Haaland in your fantasy team? Of course you have, he already has eight goals in the Premier League and is running away in the golden boot race. Here’s the full list of the Premier League’s top scorers:

After Estevao’s late winner at Stamford Bridge last night Chelsea Enzo Maresca set off on a manic touchline dash to celebrate with his team. It was maybe the most fun thing Maresca has ever done and he was sent off, meaning he will watch Chelsea’s next match from the stands, but Barney Ronay writes that it is his opposite number yesterday, Arne Slot, who has bigger issues to address when he is next on the touchline:

At Old Trafford, the dark clouds lifted lifted on Saturday as Benjamin Sesko clicked with his teammates and as he Mason Mount got themselves on the scoresheet. Post-match Mount insisted that the club are “100% behind” embattled boss Ruben Amorim:

Arsenal, the latest team to inherit the moniker of champions in waiting, handily saw off West Ham on Saturday but they are counting the cost of that victory. Martin Ødegaard picked up a knee injury and had to come off before half time again. Declan Rice, who scored the game’s first goal, also departed early with a back injury.

More from Ed Aarons here:

Liverpool’s third defeat in a row has seen the spotlight move on to the relationship, or lack thereof, between Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak. The Reds couldn’t break down a Chelsea team missing almost all of their first choice centre-backs. Liverpool head coach Arne Slot is not concerned, yet: “The more they play together the more they will connect,” the Liverpool manager said. “You have to work really hard to reach a certain level and then it’s very hard in football because you also play against very good teams to keep that level going. What I mean by that is consistency.”

More from Slot here:

Hello, good morning and welcome to Sunday’s Matchday live! Before we head of on our international breaks we have one more action-packed day of Premier League action, with five fixtures and the opportunity for UK viewers to go multiview on their Sky boxes with four of those at 2pm.

Before any of that, four fixtures in the WSL. The pick of those is Tottenham v Brighton, two teams hoping to break into the European places.

Then, the East Anglian derby is a lovely little midday livener. Amazingly Ipswich haven’t beaten Norwich since 2009. If you want some bizarre pop culture context, the last time the Tractor Boys won this fixture Kanye West hadn’t yet interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for winning best female video at the MTV Awards (for what it’s worth, Beyoncé did have one of the best videos of all time!).

In the Premier League, the narrative comes from St James’ Park but not the home team, who are simply going about their business. Yes, I am of course referring to Ange Postecoglou and the threat hanging over his continued employment as the man in the dugout for Nottingham Forest. The chances of another game without a win are high for the Australian gaffer, with Newcastle nothing if not solid.

Did you know that Crystal Palace haven’t lost in ages? They take that proud record to Everton, where the Eagles’ ability to recover from a gruelling European away day will be tested. Likewise Aston Villa, who are playing Burnley in a game for the soul of the colour claret.

Quite why Wolves v Brighton is being played on a Sunday at 2pm is not clear. Neither had a European game in midweek, but here we are. Wolves were better at Tottenham last time out, Brighton won at Stamford Bridge. This one is anyone’s guess.

Then in the headline slot, Brentford look to be the Manchester slayers for the second week in a row. City will probably be less accomodating than United, but they are vulnerable, as was evidenced at the Stade Louis II in midweek.

But before we jump into today’s action, let’s quickly recap some of the headlines from Saturday…