Wilshere out to prove Arsenal wrong

Manchester City’s Jack Grealish has denied being disrespectful towards Fluminense during Friday’s Club World Cup final victory.

Tempers briefly flared after the final whistle as City captain Kyle Walker and Fluminense defender Felipe Melo grappled in a heated argument.

Melo subsequently blamed Grealish for stoking tensions, claiming the City winger had shouted ‘ole’.

Not once did I say ole

— Jack Grealish (@JackGrealish)

Grealish insisted that was not true, writing on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter: “Not once did I say ole.”

The situation quickly calmed down before City lifted their fifth trophy of the year following a comprehensive 4-0 win over the Brazilian side in Saudi Arabia.

Julian Alvarez …

It has been quite a few weeks for Jarrod Bowen – the family man and England international who welcomed twin daughters into the world last month before delivering Europa League Conference success for West Ham.

Described by his first boss as a “manager’s dream”, Bowen’s last-minute winner in a closely-fought final against Fiorentina on Wednesday night provided an unforgettable end to West Ham’s 43-year wait for a major trophy.

The 26-year-old, whose partner is reality TV star Dani Dyer, has a down-to-earth demeanour which has seen him become a firm favourite among team-mates and the club’s supporters since he relocated to London in 2020.

“The best moment of my career” was how Bowen summed up the 90th minute at Prague’s Fortuna Arena when he latc…

With Group A opening the World Cup s first festive tournament on November 20th when Qatar meet Ecuador in Al Khor, the rest of world football s elite will have to wait a little while longer before they get their own adventures underway.

Although the likes of France might be desperate to reclaim their World Cup crown this winter, many will have one eye on Group C and a legitimate South American icon who are riding quite the wave of momentum.

Watching Argentina breeze their way to Qatar and only continuing on a remarkable purple patch, Mexico, Poland and Saudi Arabia will know that they face a monumental task if they re to find a way past the former world champions.

With a history-making tournament from the Middle East just around the corner, we have taken a glanc…

Harry Souttar s 89th minute own-goal handed Bahrain a memorable victory over Australia, emerging 1-0 victors at the Cbus Super Stadium.

The visitors were handed the advantage late on after Kusini Yengi s straight red card, with Souttar turning home Mahdi Al Humaidan s cross after a spell of pressure.

Australia were restricted to few opportunities in the first half, with Craig Goodwin and Yengi going close in quick succession just before the interval.

Despite registering 69.3% of possession in the opening half, the hosts managed just five shots at Ebrahim Lutfallah s net, only one of which was on target.

Graham Arnold s side struggled to penetrate Bahrain s stern defensive shape, with their task made even more difficult when Yengi was given his marching …

When watching games from pretty much any league in the world, there is a reasonable chance one of the players featured will be described as on loan from Chelsea .

Such is the volume of players the recent FIFA Club World Cup winners send out on loan each season, they have even had their own WhatsApp group to keep in touch, as revealed a few years ago by Patrick Bamford.

The Leeds striker, who was on loan at Crystal Palace from Chelsea at the time, said: The loan department set it up and allowed people in. Sometimes it drains your battery when everyone is messaging each other.

It had been seen as a ploy for the London club to hoard players for several years before selling them on for a profit once they had established themselves, but in recent times, especially w…

Albert Rusnak s hat-trick propelled the Seattle Sounders to a shock 4-0 win over the 10-man Columbus Crew.

The short-handed Crew were dealt a huge blow when, in the second minute of first-half stoppage time, goalkeeper Abraham Romero saw red for a foul on Jordan Morris.

With regular goalkeepers Patrick Schulte and Nicholas Hagen on international duty, Crew coach Wilfried Nancy had to turn to centre-back Sean Zawadzki.

But it took Seattle just four minutes to get the better of the stand-in, with Rusnak converting the resulting free-kick following Romero s foul.

Morris doubled Seattle s tally on the hour mark, with Rusnak then completing his hat-trick with a quickfire double.

Columbus are third in the Eastern Conference, while Seattle are fifth in t…

Al-Ittihad winger Jota wants to move to the Premier League in the final days of the January transfer window, according to . The report has claimed that West Ham United, Everton and Newcastle United all are looking into a potential deal for the former Celtic star.

Jota joined Saudi Pro League club Al-Ittihad from Scottish Premiership giants Celtic in the summer of 2023. The 24-year-old Portuguese winger has failed to make a massive impact at the Saudi Arabian club. He has scored one goal in five substitute appearances in the Saudi Pro League and has scored one goal in four AFC Champions League matches this season.

It will be interesting to see if Al-Ittihad sell Jota in the January transfer window. They paid £25 million to Celtic for the winger, so it will be a surprise…

A new year may bring fresh hope, but the same old problems were clear to see for Chelsea in their 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest on Sunday.

A team seemingly stuck in transition and unable to fully adapt to the methods of head coach Graham Potter, Chelsea face a huge battle to even finish in the Premier League top four this season – their absolute minimum target.

Amid all the talk of a struggling attack (only eight other teams have scored fewer goals per game than Chelsea this season), and the need for further freshening up in other areas, the situation regarding the goalkeeping position has all of a sudden gone very quiet.

The opening of the transfer window in recent years, whether prior to the start of a new season or midway through, would lead to strong specul…

River Plate entertain arch-rivals Boca Juniors in the first leg of their Copa Libertadores semi-final on Tuesday, but the defending champions have hardly set the tournament alight in 2019.

Marcelo Gallardo has already led River to two Libertadores titles last year s coming after a Superclasico final against Boca and is hoping to make them the first team to successfully defend their crown since a Boca side inspired by Juan Roman Riquelme in 2001.

However, Los Millonarios have won just three of their 10 matches en route to the final four – the joint-fewest of any semi-finalist to have taken part in the group stage.

With the help of Opta, we look at the teams that reached the penultimate round with the same amount of victories.

Cerro Porteno (19…

Leah Williamson has withdrawn from her first England squad since last April due to injury, with Millie Turner called up in place of the Euro 2022-winning captain.

Arsenal described the 26-year-old’s problem as a “minor hamstring injury” ahead of Saturday’s 3-1 victory over Manchester United, less than a month after Williamson returned to action for the Gunners following a nine-month recovery from an anterior cruciate ligament rupture.

World Cup runners-up England travel to Spain on Monday ahead of two friendlies against Austria and Italy, with Manchester United defender Turner replacing Williamson in Sarina Wiegman’s squad.

Millie Turner has been called up to the England squad, replacing Leah Williamson who has withdrawn with an injury.

Wishing …